As has been stated many times before, you can throw records out the door when Benton County teams hook up. The Lincoln Cardinals defeated the Cole Camp Bluebirds on the road Tuesday night, 50-31 in a basketball contest that early on was closer than expected.
A trapping half court Cole Camp press caused heavily favored Lincoln problems in the first half. It was 16-10 after one and 26-18 at the half.
The Bluebirds achilles heel this season has been their lack of scoring.
"We don't have a shooter." Cole Camp head coach Kevin Shearer admitted.
However, with a team full of inexperienced varsity players, the Bluebirds have made great strides since the start of the season.
"We are not there yet," Coach Shearer added. "This was expected as no one on this team received any significant varsity playing time last season. We go through stretches where we can't score and that is when teams put it on us."
Coach Shearer went on to say, "We were mentality fried by the fourth quarter."
The third period saw the Cardinals pull ahead 41-24 thanks to a 15-6 run by a balanced five man inside-outside attack.
Lincoln center Ben Eckhoff led the Cardinals scoring with 14 points. Kolton Phillips led the Bluebirds with 8.
Lincoln moved to 12-2 while Cole Camp fell to 2-9.
LINCOLN (50): Eckhoff, 14; Harms, 2; Everhart, 2; Benham, 9; Koll, 2; Parrott, 9; Cole, 2; Sanders, 10.
COLE CAMP (31): Phillips, 8; Kaiser, 3; Clark, 2; Burdick, 6; Peterson, 2; Bohon, 3; Dieckman, 4; Abey, 2.
In the JV contest, Lincoln also won, 43-24.
Grayson Rutherford led Lincoln with 14 and Turnner Kriesler had 11.
Bovey Clark had 6 for Cole Camp.
