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DANVILLE – The No. 4 Lady Patriots continued with their winning ways Tuesday night, ousting host Danville 67-40 in the semifinal round of the 45th District Tournament.

Lincoln, the defending district champion and the tourney’s top seed, jumped out to a 31-16 lead at the half and Danville never challenged.

The Lady Patriots (21-4) defeated Danville by margins of 26 points and 19 points in the regular season, and held a double-digit lead for almost 24 minutes Tuesday, however, that did little to set Lincoln coach Don Story at ease.

“Here’s the thing. Danville never makes it easy on you because they’ve got that pressure defense, and I saw them score 28 points against a very good LCA (Lexington Christian Academy) team Saturday in the fourth quarter,” said Story. “As you know, I never feel comfortable anyway, and especially playing against a team that gets after you like Danville. You never get comfortable.”

“That’s a tribute to Judie Mason. She’s a great coach and she gets her kids to play hard every game.”

The Lincoln mentor had to be feeling just a little bit better knowing that Kendra Brown and Jessica Upchurch were playing for his team. Brown, a 6-3 senior center, and Upchurch, a senior guard, scored 23 points apiece in the win and combined for 18 rebounds. Brown earned a double-double by grabbing 10 boards and Upchurch had eight.

“Having Kendra in the middle for you and Jessica, the athlete, and the rest of our kids too, is always good, but they really shined tonight,” said Story. “23 and 10 for Ken and 23 and 8 for Jess. That’s pretty awesome. It was an outstanding game for both of them.”

Brown had a little extra recognition to come her way post-game, with Danville coach Judie Mason presenting her with the game ball for scoring her 1,000th career point. Brown needed four points to hit the milestone and she did so midway of the first quarter, hitting back-to-back buckets.

Lincoln’s win now moves the Lady Patriots into Friday’s district championship game where they will defend their title against Garrard County, a 61-47 winner over Boyle County. The girls’ title game will be played at 6 p.m.

Lincoln never trailed in Tuesday’s win.

After Brown’s back-to-back goals, which put Lincoln up 9-3, both teams fell into a shooting slump, with missed shots and fouls to follow for over two minutes. An Eleisha Houston jumper ended the scoring drought for Danville with 1:54 showing.

Just 54 ticks remained when Upchurch broke Lincoln out of its funk with a driving layup. She repeated with the same play as time expired, turning a Danville turnover into a layup and a 13-5 Lady Pat lead.

Lincoln was holding to an 18-5 lead early in the second quarter after six straight points by Brown.

Houston bombed in a Lady Admiral 3-pointer with 4:13 to go in the half to whittle Lincoln’s lead to single digits, 20-11, and Laken Grey converted on a three-point play with 2:41 showing to make it a 24-16 game.

But the margin was back at double digits by the break, with Nikki Bustle hitting a 3-pointer and Upchurch sinking two foul shots and going to the paint for two more to give the Lady Pats a 31-16 cushion.

Lincoln sealed Danville’s fate in the third quarter with two crippling runs. A 9-2 surge midway of the period pushed Lincoln ahead 42-23 and the Lady Pats closed on a 9-1 run to go up 52-28 heading into the final frame.

Lincoln moved on for the win with a 15-12 fourth-quarter scoring edge.

Shots were going Lincoln’s way most of the night as the Lady Patriots connected on 24 of 47 shot attempts for 51 percent. Lincoln was 18-for-25 from the foul line.

The rebounds were going Lincoln’s way as well, with the Lady Pats crashing the boards for 35 rebounds compared to 20 for Danville.

Story said the Danville game was a good way for Lincoln to get the post-season tournament action started.

“I feel like it is,” he said. “Playing a team like Danville – you’re not going to see too much better pressure-defense. They get after you and they’ve got quickness at guard position. Now sometimes it hurts them because they don’t have a big girl inside, and that helped us tonight with Kendra. And sometimes they overplay, and Jessica got by them a few times. But they’ve got a really good pressure defense.”

Lincoln’s defense limited Danville’s shooting, with the Lady Ads going a chilly 28 percent from the field, 14-for-50. The Lady Ads were 16-for-27 at the line.

Danville did top Lincoln in its ballhandling, committing nine turnovers to the Lady Pats’ 15, but Story said he was happy with the numbers.

“Most of the night I felt like our kids were pretty composed,” he said. “We’ve got a freshman point guard that’s going against some athletes that their job is to put pressure on the point guard. For our point guards, Alissa (Patterson) coming back and Emily (Fox), a freshman, to handle the storm, and just have 15 turnovers. We felt like we did a good job.”

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