Lincoln Academy already had York playing at its pace but led by only three points at halftime in a Class B South boys’ basketball semifinal Tuesday night at the Portland Expo.
The second-seeded Eagles got a clear message from Coach Ryan Ball during the break. If they wanted to earn the program’s first trip to a regional final since winning the 1989 Class B title and the respect a No. 2 seed deserves, they needed to perform better.
“Coach said in the locker room, ‘You guys have a point to prove. If you guys want to win this game, you have to have the best third quarter of your lives,” said Tucker Stiles, one of Lincoln’s five senior starters. “So we went out there and did that for him, and it put us in the right spot. And it felt pretty good.”
Lincoln (17-3) scored the first 13 points of the second half, part of a 27-2 run that included the last six points of the second quarter, and dispatched No. 3 York, 55-37, in front of a large crowd.
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The victory set up an all-midcoast regional final at 3:45 p.m. Friday at the Expo. Lincoln, of Newcastle, will face No. 1 Oceanside (20-0), which beat the Eagles twice during the regular season, 95-68 and 67-65.
“We’ve been playing together a long time. It’s been eight or nine years in the making, and we all want the same thing. We want to win,” said Gabe Hager, who led Lincoln with 14 points.
Lucas Houghton (12) and Casey Duncan (10) both attacked the glass to score inside. Stiles (six points) and Drew Hunt (seven points) each had four points in the decisive third quarter.
York (16-4) got 12 points from Connor Roberge and 10 from Derek Parsons, but only five second-half points from the rest of the team.
There were eight lead changes in the first half, but York was already rushing its offense.
Lincoln scored the first six points of the third quarter. Then York junior center Lukas Bouchard was called for his third foul while blocking a Hagar shot and picked up a technical foul after the call. Stiles made the technical free throws, Hagar added two free throws, and Duncan scored inside for a six-point possession and a 37-22 lead.
Bouchard was relegated to the bench with four fouls (he fouled out in the fourth quarter), and Lincoln pushed its lead to 46-27 after three quarters.
“They definitely got us uncomfortable,” said York Coach Jerry Hill. “It was something we worked on and talked about, and hoping we’d be able to control it, and we lost our composure and it hurt us.”
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