Lincoln blows past North Thurston in 3A district championship game. Tacoma Dome next
Holding an opponent to under 30 points in a basketball game is usually a good recipe for success. Just ask Lincoln, which deployed its signature swarming defense in a 51-27 win over North Thurston in the 3A District 3/4 high school girls basketball championship game at Auburn High on Saturday night.
“It’s our DNA,” said Lincoln coach Jamila Jones. “I wouldn’t say this was our best defensive effort, but I thought the effort was there. I’m not sure our execution was there tonight, but we still got it done. We just have higher standards. We want to play well.”
Lincoln’s goals lie beyond the district tournament. Specifically, at the state tournament in the Tacoma Dome in the first week of March. Cruising through the district tournament — collecting wins over Todd Beamer, Bonney Lake and North Thurston — was expected. Lincoln won its three district games by an average margin of 24 points.
North Thurston standout Soraya Ogaldez left the game in the second quarter with an apparent ankle injury. The Rams struggled to put the ball in the hoop in her absence. Lincoln, meanwhile, had a balanced scoring load, with eight different players registering on the score sheet. 6-foot-3 freshman Oliviyah Edwards led the Abes with a game-high 11 points, while junior forward DeAndrea Woods-Singleton added 10.
“I feel like our defense starts our offense,” Woods-Singleton said. “We like to get the ball on steals, run in transition. That’s kind of the key to our offense.”
Lincoln’s offense runs inside-out through Edwards and Woods-Singleton.
“I feel like me and Oliviyah, if we play good together, we’re really hard to beat,” Woods-Singleton said. “If Oliviyah crashes the boards and I crash the boards and we’re both dominating the paint, I think we’re a really hard team to beat.”
Lincoln lost this season’s 3A Pierce County League MVP Ciona Wells, a guard, to an ACL injury recently. In her absence, Jones is relying on a team-wide approach every game.
“When you lose your point guard, the league MVP, it’s kind of tough, but we’ve been trying to do it together and what we’re trying to get our team to buy into it like, we’re built so that it may be someone else’s night every night,” Jones said. “Trust each other and let’s just go play. Right now, it has to be other people’s nights because we’re missing a big piece.”
Even without Wells, the district tournament showed Lincoln will be a tough matchup for any team in the Tacoma Dome.
“It gives us great momentum,” Woods-Singleton said. “I feel like we’re really at the peak of our season right now and feel like we’re loving each other more than ever, we’re more connected, we’re playing the best basketball we have all year.”
