DANVILLE — Coach Cassandra McWhorter’s Lady Patriot basketball team took care of business in the first round of the 45th District Tournament semifinals at Danville High School Tuesday night, eliminating Garrard County in a 79-30 rout.

The Lincoln girls, the tourney’s top seed and reigning district champions, improve to 22-6 with the win, which sets them up to defend their district title. The victory also earns them an automatic berth in next week’s 12th Region tourney at LCHS.

“We get to go home,” said McWhorter. “We get to go home. We get to play on our floor come region time. But we’ve still got one more game in this district tournament here at Danville’s gym to worry about and it’s Friday night.”

Lincoln will play for the championship Friday night against the winner of Wednesday night’s Danville/Boyle County game.

“Winning the district, being the district champion going into the region tournament is very important so you’re not facing one of the top teams from the other districts,” said McWhorter.

Led by Maddy Boyle’s game-high 26 points and 15 points from Emma King, Lincoln had 11 players get in the scoring column as the team dominated the Lady Lions for a third time this season.

“Of course we told the girls you can’t overlook anyone, but we really wanted to worry about little things and doing little things well,” McWhorter said. “As we move forward, we need to make sure that we’re doing all the little things well.”

It might have taken the Lady Patriots a few minutes to get into the flow of the game, as they missed 11 of their first 13 shots, but they never trailed. Lincoln put up 17 points before Garrard ever broke on the scoreboard, with Boyle knocking down a couple shots midway through the period to get the Lady Patriot offense on course, and Lincoln dominated the rest of the way.

Lincoln connected on 7 of its next 13 shots from the field in the first quarter and went on to finish at 50 percent overall on 31-for-62 shooting. The Lady Patriots were 11-for-14 at the foul line.

“I’ll be honest, the first three to four minutes of the first quarter I wasn’t happy with some of the little things and how we were doing things,” McWhorter said. “Until Maddy, who I think had five 3’s, hit a couple 3’s there it was kind of a little dry spell. We missed quite a few buckets underneath early. But they got it together after a little timeout and a little refocus. I thought Maddy hit a couple shots that got us rolling and we got defensive stops that got us going and more in the flow of the game. I’m really proud overall of everyone’s effort.”

Madisyn Neeley scored the Lady Lions’ only bucket of the first quarter with 1:26 on the clock to make it 17-2.

Lincoln, which led 24-2 at the end of the first, held Garrard (10-22) scoreless from the field in the second quarter. The Lady Lions, who were held to single digits until the fourth quarter, went 6-for-8 at the foul line to make it 42-8 at the half. Olivia Saylor, who led Garrard with nine points, sank four free throws in the period. Kara Mosier, who finished with six points, got two free throws to fall.

Garrard struggled offensively throughout the game and finished at an icy 13.9 percent from the field, going 6-for-43. The Lady Lions scored over half of their points at the line, on a 16-for-24 stint.

“They had a tough time getting anything going tonight,” said McWhorter. “I think they had a couple not on the team tonight that we had seen previously. Just probably a little chemistry and things going.”

Garrard did hit double figures in the fourth quarter, closing with 15 points. Ashlynn Clark and Neeley, who both finished with six points for the Lady Lions, each drained a 3-pointer in the final frame.

With the semifinal win behind them, the Lady Patriots look ahead to Friday’s championship game.

“Our girls played well and I’m proud of how they played tonight. Now, we’ve got to get ready for our next opponent, whoever that may be,” McWhorter said. “We’ve got to just keep focusing on the little things we can do well to improve and getting ready for Friday – and also prepare for region on our own floor.”

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45th District Tournament
Semifinal Round

at Danville H.S.

Garrard 2 6 7 15 – 30
Lincoln 24 18 18 19 – 79

GARRARD (10-22) – Ashlynn Clark 6, Hallie Martin 2, Kara Mosier 6, Madisyn Neeley 6, Jade Pevley 1, Olivia Saylor 9.
LINCOLN (22-6) – Emma King 15, Kaitlynn Wilks 7, Maddy Boyle 26, Trinity Shearer 7, Zaria Napier 4, Anna Lane 2, Courtney Snow 2, Lydia Rice 6, Ally Lynn 2, Haleigh Releford 6, Claudia Padgett 2.