Lincoln Wins, Looks Good Doing It : Memory of Poor Play in Section Final Spurs 88-64 Victory

Ask Lincoln Coach Ron Loneski about his team’s win over Ramona in the San Diego Section Division III final, and he won’t pull any punches. The man was not pleased even though his team won, 71-63.

That meant Loneski was in no mood for fooling around in practice this week. He said he was on his players about even the little things like reaching in, making turnovers and taking too many dribbles up the floor. Loneski wanted his players to feel the same way he did after last Friday’s game so that performance would not be repeated when the team entered the Southern California Regional final.

“We played horrible in that game,” Loneski said. “I was not going to lie to these kids and tell them they should be happy with a section title.”

From the looks of things, the players felt as bad, or maybe even worse, than Loneski.

Lincoln (25-2), the top-seeded team in the four-team Division III tournament, beat Visalia Golden West, 88-64. It will play Lemoore at the Los Angeles Sports Arena at 1 p.m. Saturday for the Southern California Regional Division III championship and a right to play in the state finals.

Lincoln played its game Thursday night--pressing the ball up the floor, and then pressing their opponents on the way back. It did not let Golden West, which resembled Ramona’s slow-down team in many ways, dictate the tempo.

Unlike the game against Ramona, Lincoln got its running game going right away against Golden West (15-11), the fourth-seeded team.

Golden West ran with them, too--for about a quarter.

After leading by six at the end of the first quarter, 24-18, Lincoln really turned up the tempo and outscored Golden West, 25-7, in the second period to take a 49-25 halftime lead. Despite playing at such a high pace, Lincoln committed only three turnovers.

“The tempo was too high for us,” Golden West Coach Rex Robertson said. “It showed in the second quarter. Our kids got too winded.”

The game was never close after that. Guards Carl Gaines and Kenny Hawkins kept the tempo high and Lincoln led by 25 at the end of the third, 65-40.

Gaines, who scored 14 of his 21 points in the first half, scored five times off the break in the first half. He might have had more if he had taken the open 12-foot jumpers that the Golden West defense gave him on several occasions. Loneski said that is not Gaines’ style.

“He’s not a slow-down pattern player,” Loneski said. “His game is to get out and run. I’m after him all the time to shoot those shots. But he’d rather give it to someone else.”

In the first half, that someone else was 6-foot 6-inch forward Aaron Wilhite. He cleaned up against Golden West, which did not have the size to match Lincoln inside, either.

Wilhite, a junior, had eight points and six rebounds in the first half, and finished with 12 points and 12 rebounds.

The only thing that looked to be on Golden West’s side was the ability to hit the three-pointer. The Trailblazers seldom missed one in warmups and Robertson said they had used it effectively in games during the season.

But Lincoln, which almost never shoots the three, ended up winning that battle as well.

Golden West took more shots, 14, but made only 6. Lincoln made 4 of the 5 it took.

“Their quickness stopped the three-pointer,” Robertson said. “We were hoping it could help us a little more. But they took that away from us, too.”

That was something Lincoln did not do against Ramona.

In that game, Lincoln looked lethargic on defense. Ramona could punch the ball inside, take the outside shot, do whatever it wanted. Lincoln just stood and watched.

But against Golden West, Lincoln’s man-to-man and full-court zone press were much more active. Golden West committed 19 turnovers in the first three quarters.

Wilhite said there was a reason for that. He and his teammates remembered how they had played against Ramona. They had heard about it all week.

“Everybody said we played bad against Ramona,” Wilhite said. “So we were fired up.”

In Thursday’s other Division III game:

Lemoore 69, Ramona 57-- Ramona overcame poor shooting in the first quarter to rally from 19 points down and trail by two, but Tommy Jones’ steal and layup in the third quarter bolstered Lemoore (17-8). For Ramona, which traveled to the Fresno area for the game, Chad Nelson scored 16 points, Kenny Pendell 12 and Tony Newman 10.

The Bulldogs (15-17) hit 5 of 18 from the field and 2 of 8 from the line in the first quarter.

“We could blame the trip, different rims, different background, their defense--we didn’t shoot well,” said Ramona Coach Al Schaffer.

Jones and Dennis Hubanks each scored 18 for Lemoore.