St. Regis Tigers visit Lincoln Lynx in long-awaited home opener

The Lincoln faithful have been waiting and waiting for a basketball game in their own gym. The Lynx varsity season, which began for the Lincoln men in Frenchtown Nov. 30, has been on the road for six weeks. But, if excitement is what the doctor ordered for a dreary winter day, the home game Friday, Jan. 11 filled the bill, in a match that was part basketball and part demolition derby.

Fireworks electrified the crowd from the first whistle. The stands were packed and the Lynx came out in fighting spirit. In a contest that was tied up six times, the aggressive play soon got out of hand. The referees made a lot of controversial calls on both teams which only added to the anger on the court and in the stands.

The Tiger's coach earned a technical foul for arguing with the officials, one of the Lynx fans was ejected and escorted out of the gym for repeatedly pointing out to the refs what he saw as bad calls and the players were taking their frustration out against each other.

It was brutal.

"There was more trash talk and banging around than usual," said Sophomore Brodi Henderson, "but I just tried to stay calm and play through it."

Henderson, who recently moved to Lincoln from a bigger school in Florence, Ore., lit up the court with his skillful shooting and in-your-face defense. He's only 5-foot, 7-inches, but he plays like 7-foot 5, scoring 13 points and wrestling down eight rebounds.

The second half began with the score tied up again, but the rough and tumble action and thundering fast breaks between the stripes started to tire the Lynx. St. Regis slowly pulled ahead in the fourth period. The final score, a 55 - 76 non-conference loss for Lincoln, did not reflect the tight, evenly-matched game. In the last period, the Tigers went on a fifteen-point run and that sealed the fate of the Lynx.

Junior Nathan Brown had 25 points, eleven of which were free throws, demonstrating that the Tiger strategy was to contain the Lynx star by fouling him. Brown showed his unselfish play in dishing off to teammates many times when he could have gone up to the hoop himself.

New Lynx player Ryan Greenwood, from "somewhere back East", made his Lincoln debut with two points, Noah Belcher, in his second season, scored eight points and 'linebacker' Kade Creech added seven. Jager Vossler couldn't see his long balls fall through the net, but the wide-body Lynx was instrumental in taking several charges in the paint resulting in turnovers, always with a smile.

Next up for the Lynx is White Sulphur Springs on Friday, Jan. 18, starting at 4:30 p.m.