DIVISION IV BOYS’ PLAYOFFS : Lincoln Struggles But Wins

No one said it was going to be difficult.

But Lincoln High made it so.

Going into the Division IV championship game at Golden Hall against decidedly overmatched Clairemont, Lincoln suffered a relapse of sorts and had as much trouble beating itself as it did beating the Chieftains.

In the end, Lincoln prevailed, 68-54.

It was the Hornets’ fourth consecutive section title; the first three came in Divsion III. The latest was supposed to fall into place with relative ease since Lincoln, still drawing from athlete-rich Southeast San Diego, moved down a division.

But this one was not easy. The Hornets let Clairemont remain within striking distance until late in the game.

There Clairemont was at the end of the initial quarter, having held the county’s highest-scoring team (83.7 point average) to only 10 points, yet trailing by four.

Later, halfway through the third quarter--and after Chieftain John Price hit a jumper from the free-throw line, drew a foul from Dennis Washington and made good on the three-point play--there was Clairemont within one point of the only San Diego Section team expected to challenge for a state title.

The teams then traded baskets and Clairemont remained within two with 38 seconds to go in the third quarter, 45-43.

Why couldn’t Lincoln, a team that won its semifinal 104-49 over Coronado, go on a run?

Poor shot selection, answered guard Hosa Baker.

Pure laziness, said teammate Berry Randle.

Butterflies, argued Coach Ron Loneski.

Or maybe it just took Lincoln a while to shift into high gear.

In fact, Lincoln began an abbreviated run in the final seconds of the third quarter. First, 6-foot-3 forward Scott Hammond tipped in a rebound to make it 47-43 with 19 seconds left.

A few ticks later, Hammond stole a pass in Clairemont’s backcourt and shoveled the ball underneath to Randle, who layed it in at the buzzer.

“The guy who picked us up,” Loneski stressed, “was Scott Hammond when he came in and started grabbing some rebounds.”

Somewhere else in the equation was Baker, who finished with a game-high 18 points, including 10 in the third quarter.

More importantly, Baker, a 6-foot guard, was assigned the task of shadowing Clairemont power forward Alex Love, who finished the season No. 2 in the county in scoring with a 25.1 average.

“Hosa Baker came up to me and asked if he could guard Alex Love,” Loneski recalled. “A lot of people told me Hosa was too small to guard Alex, but Hosa wanted to do it and he’s a great defensive player, so I gave him the go-ahead.”

Wise choice--Baker held Love to 13 points.

As for the expected blowout, Loneski hit on another reason as to why it never came when he said, “If we would have shot 50% from the free-throw line, we would have scored 80 points.”

Loneski was exaggerating, but his team did miss 14 of 26 from the line.

It wasn’t much better from the field, either, as the Hornets kept taking errant shots from the outside.

“I was being selfish shooting from the outside instead of going to the hole,” Baker said. “In fact, a lot of us were being selfish. We should have listened to coach when he said to take it down low.”

Randle didn’t entirely agree with that.

“You could tell they scouted us well because they kept those three men packed in around the basket,” Randle said of Clairemont’s 2-3 zone. “They knew what they were doing.”

Now the Hornets prepare for the state playoffs, which begin Tuesday, while pondering what happened in the Section title game.

“It’s kind of good this happened,” Randle said. “Now we know we can’t beat teams like we did Coronado. This woke us up. At least it woke me up.”