Post Season Basketball Awards

SIX LINCOLN BOYS HONORED BY CONFERENCE

LINCOLN — The Lincoln Wolves boys were well represented in postseason basketball awards.

Ossy Escareno, of Lincoln, was named to the All-Tournament team, commemorating the Wolves’ excursion into the state tournament in their first season of 4A competition.

Despite not having a big scoring outing, Escareno consistently contributed in Lincoln’s 46-35 loss to Pocahontas at the state tournament held at Cave City. His passing and dribble penetration was instrumental in keying a 17-6 run by Lincoln to overcome a 9-0 start helping the Wolves to a 17-15 halftime lead.

Lincoln upset top- seed Subiaco Academy, 54-49, in the first-round at the North Regional and was the only school from the 4A-1 to win a game in the tournament with top-seed Farmington, second seed, Pea Ridge; and third seed, Gravette, all falling.

“We were the sole survivors. It’s a tough conference,” said Lincoln boys coach Tim Rich. “As they say in March madness what it boils down to is it’s all about match- ups. We got lucky and had some good match-ups for us right there at the end.”

All- Conference players for the Lincoln boys included: Escareno, Payton Hulse and Colton Barnum. Escareno averaged 11 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals per game.

“Ossy played inside-out. He played well and led the team in most categories,” Rich said. “This whole group, they’ve played together for a long time. That’s a big factor. We had a lot of guys averaging around that 10- points- a-game mark, playing unselfish basketball.”

Hulse averaged 10 points, 3 rebounds and 1.4 steals per game.

“He did a good job of stepping up at the one (point guard) while Dalton Simmons did a great job coming in at the two (shooting guard) and giving us that spurt off the wing.”

Barnum averaged 9 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists per game.

“He shows up and goes to work. He’s the smallest big man in the league, yet he played hard and did a great job,” Rich said. “He was our second leading rebounder and got us a lot of second chance shots.”

“Barnum did a great job of filling that low post area defensively, just not letting teams get to where they wanted to be.”

Dylan McConnell, Dalton Simmons and Shandon Goldman received honorable mention All- Conference recognition.

“You could break it down game by game and have different most valuable players all the time,” Rich said. “McConnell had nights like that. He played extremely well and consistently for us all year.”

“Each night it could be somebody else stepping it up. They all kind of took turns.”

Rich hailed Goldman as another player who did a great job as a sophomore coming up, saying Goldman got stronger with each game played.

“Offensively and defensively, he stepped up, really on the boards. As tall as he is, he started making his presence known with some blocked shots.”