[Preview of this week’s article in Inside—Booster.]
By Jack Lydon.
Lincoln Park High School’s gym itself is small with only three rows of seats on two sides of the court. It’s loud. It’s dark. It’s crowded. It’s half game and half concert. The fans are part of the game.
Seriously, the feet of the fans sitting in the first row are actually on the court. At one point, a Lincoln Park’s Marquis Clark stepped on the foot of a person sitting in the front row, stumbled and was called for traveling. The Lincoln Park bench started screaming. The referee responded, “It’s the same for both sides.”
The 25th ranked visiting Whitney Young Dolphins survived Thursday evening’s tense Chicago Public League Red-North division match at Lincoln Park 65-62. The Lincoln Park Lions (11-4, 3-1) are a top team in the Public League, the best team on the Northside. They are not ranked only for having suffered an early season loss to an underrated Hyde Park high school squad. There other losses are to No. 20 Kenwood and Whitney Young, twice. In a curious schedule anomaly, the Lions faced the Dolphins two games in a row because they played on December 30th at the Chicago Public League’s holiday shootout hosted at Whitney Young high school. The Dolphins prevailed in that game 69-61.
Although the Dolphins lead most of the game, it was never by much. The Lions came within one point, 55-54, with under three minutes to play. It seemed Lincoln Park might pull off an inspired comeback victory.
Unfortunately for the Lions and their cheering fans, they had no answer for the Dolphins’ transition offence. The Lions installed their full court press to force turnovers but the Dolphins, lead by their senior point guard, 6’1” and Tennessee commit, Marquis Clark, kept their cool and methodically brought the ball up court for layups and open three-pointers. Clark is considered by many the third best player in the state of Illinois. These were by no means easy layups but if they did not fall, the resulting in free throws were enough to maintain Whitney Young’s lead.
Another bright spot for the Dolphins was the emergence of freshman forward Travis Jamison II. Jamison finished with 18 points consisting of 6 out of 9 three-point shots.
Despite the struggles faced by the Lions, the inspired play of senior forward Larry Harris was an eye-opener. In the final minute of the game, Harris came up with two big dunks, one of which was taken away for hanging on the rim, and free throw. There was also an inspired rebound of a missed free throw where Harris split two Dolphin defenders grabbed the ball but missed had his put back shot blocked.
“I knew that I had to put way more effort in at the end. I always try to get the rebound after a free throw no matter what,” Harris said.
“They are not even really better than us. We just keep beating ourselves,” said Harris about Young. “The first game we had them down twenty at the half and we let them come back. We are a better team than that.”
“It’s always fun in the Lions den,” said Lincoln Park head coach Joshua Anderson.
“Just lack of focus from the first through the fourth. You have to focus through the complete game. We had lapses. We weren’t focused. We were not executing what we watched on film.”
There were also some key missed free throws at the end of the game.
“That’s been our Achille’s heel throughout the season,” Anderson admitted. “We are losing games by five or six points but we are missing ten to twelve free throws a game. You can’t win a game like that.”
“For us to get over the hump in the big games, we have got to do the little things. That focus has to be there from the first quarter through the fourth quarter. We can’t have lapses,” said Anderson.
