Washington County Enterprise-Leader
High Flying Tigers Hold Wolves At Bay
LINCOLN — Sophomore Eric Henderson provided outside shooting, junior Ryder Orr inside muscle and senior Landon Semrad did his best Julius Erving imitation as Prairie Grove beat Lincoln 66-55 Dec. 7.
With the Wolves sagging in trying to keep Orr off the boards and time about to expire in the third quarter, Semrad raced across the baseline and latched onto an offensive rebound with his back to the basket. While hanging in the air he heard Tigers coach Steve Edmiston yell, “shoot it,” and threw up an acrobatic shot over his left shoulder that went in as the horn went off sending Prairie Grove fans into a frenzy.
That score became a key basket in helping the Tigers extend a 31-24 halftime lead into a 48-36 advantage at the end of the third quarter.
Rylee Remington stole the ball and found Kyler Calvin with the outlet. Calvin fed Jace Birkes for a basket keeping the Wolves within 49-38 with 6:33 left but Orr drained two free throws and Semrad threw down a breakaway slam dunk.
Lincoln senior Trey Reed nailed a long three at the other end quieting the Tiger fans momentarily but Orr, who made 9-of-10 free throws, made a pair and Semrad gathered himself going for another dunk off a steal.
This time Lincoln prevented it with Remington fouling Semrad who crashed hard into the padded basket support. The intentional foul drew an ejection and Semrad made both charity shots. Orr capped a 10- 3 Prairie Grove run by scoring in the paint to push the margin out to 59- 41, the Tigers’ biggest lead of the game at the 4:48 mark.
“I think the difference was free throws down the stretch. We didn’t do a very good job of taking care of the basketball late. We’re young and we’ve got to do a better job of taking care of the basketball in situations. We’ve got to know time and score situations,” said Prairie Grove coach Steve Edmiston.
Lincoln answered with an 8-0 run getting a putback from Birkes and consecutive threes from Bryce Dye and Calvin before Semrad beat the Wolves off the dribble and Henderson drilled a trifecta sandwiched around Calvin’s free throws for the Wolves.
Calvin connected on a 3- pointer with a hand in his face to narrow the gap to 65- 54 but the Wolves could only manage a single free throw in the last two minutes and Prairie Grove won the nonconference boys basketball game, 66-55.
“When you’ve got a team that’s coming at you, Lincoln didn’t give up, they fought us the whole way, you’ve got to be able to step up and make free throws and that’s what we did,” Edmiston said.
The game was played on Pearl Harbor Day, the 70th anniversary of the Japanese surprise attack on the U.S. Naval base at Ford Island in Hawaii. Lincoln coach Tim Rich, a U.S. Navy veteran, made certain each of his classes throughout the day were aware of the significance of this date in history and the sacrifices of U. S. military personnel who made a stand for freedom, sometimes under enemy fire.
“You talk about it in bootcamp, but other than that I didn’t hear a lot about it usually during my deployments,” Rich said.
Despite the basketball loss to rival Prairie Grove, Rich feels like the Wolves are improving at holding their own on the boards.
“We’re getting better each game at putting a body on someone and blocking out. This is a good game to get us ready for conference. We’ve got some conference teams with some size so it’s a good experience,” Rich said.
PRAIRIE GROVE 66, LINCOLN 55
Prairie Grove 11 20 17 18 — 66 Lincoln 8 16 12 19 — 55 Lincoln (2-4): Kyler Calvin 7 2-2 20, Jace Birkes 5 0-0 11, Trey Reed 3 1-2 9, Drew Moore 1 0-0 3, A.J. Garner 1 1-3 3, Bryce Dye 1 0-0 3, Rylee Remington 1 0-0 2, Brennan Davis 1 0-1 2, Lincoln Morphis 1 0-0 2. Totals 21 4-8 55.
Prairie Grove: Eric Henderson 5 5-6 20, Ryder Orr 5 9-10 19, Landon Semrad 5 5-8 15, Cole Edmiston 2 4-6 8, Cole Cash 2 0-0 4, Tate Benoit 0 1-2 1. Totals 19 23-32 66.
3-Point Goals — Lincoln 9 (Calvin 4, Reed 2, Moore, Birkes, Dye), Prairie Grove 5 (Henderson 5).