KEARNEY — After a half, the Kearney High boys basketball team was poised to pull an upset over No. 5 Lincoln High. Then disaster struck.
After taking a 25-24 halftime lead, the Bearcats (9-11) got outscored 12-2 in the third quarter and never recovered as Lincoln High (13-5) held on to a 59-45 victory Friday night at KHS.
Kearney struggled against the Links’ 1-3-1 zone, going 1 of 17 from the field in the third period with its only bucket coming from Spencer Loescher — who led the Bearcats with 17 points and 12 rebounds — midway through the quarter.
“They came out in a 1-3-1 and we were very unaggressive. … The second half we were a little bit on our heels. That part of it was a little bit disappointing, but we took some good shots. Unfortunately we only made one,” said Kearney High coach Kyle Hoehner.
While the Bearcats were struggling, Lincoln’s big three — seniors Andrew Klein, Yusuf Vinson, and Christian Lewis — took the game over. The trio scored all 12 of the Links’ points in the quarter and gave Lincoln High a 36-27 cushion heading into the final period. Klein and Vinson led the Links with 16 points apiece, while Lewis chipped in 15.
“It was big. We started getting a little bit of a lead there right away and started to extend it a little bit. It did create some cushion because they did put a little push to us in the fourth quarter,” said Lincoln High coach Russ Uhing on the quick start to the second half.
The Bearcats eventually cut Lincoln High’s lead to 44-40 on a Drew Emken three-pointer with 4:17 remaining, but the Links had an answer. Lewis hit four free throws and Vinson drilled a three over a one-minute span to give Lincoln its biggest lead at 51-40 with 2:07 left.
“We never could get it to a one possession game. We got to four, we got to five, we got to six, but we could never get it to one possession. But to their credit, they came down and hit some big shots, and that’s why they’re the No. 5 team in the state,” said Hoehner.
Lincoln’s strong second half washed out a gutty performance from the Bearcats in the first. Trailing by six points to start the game, Kearney exploded on a 14-0 run to take a 21-13 advantage midway through the second quarter.
“Kearney played a lot harder than we did for the first 14 minutes of the game, I thought. We started picking it up a little bit there in the last couple minutes in the first half and I thought in the second half we did a better job of it,” said Uhing.
Kearney finishes up its regular season Monday when it hosts Hastings at 7:45 p.m. at Sunrise Middle School. The game is a make-up game from earlier in the year and was moved to an alternate location since Kearney High is hosting boys subdistrict games.
e-mail to:
seth.blank@kearneyhub.com
LINCOLN HIGH 59, KHS 45
Score by Quarters
LINCOLN HIGH (13-5) 13 11 12 23 — 59
KHS (9-11) 14 11 2 18 — 45
LINCOLN HIGH — Bobby Weaver 2-3 3-4 7, Preston Harris 1-4 0-3 3, Andrew Klein 7-10 2-2 16, Garrett Jones 1-4 0-0 2, Yusuf Vinson 6-11 2-2 16, Josh Riser 0-2 0-0 0, Christian Lewis 4-6 7-10 15. Totals 21-40 14-21 59.
