By T. Scott Boatright
If only the first quarter of each half would have counted, it would have been a tight, competitive game.
Unfortunately for the Lincoln Preparatory School girls basketball team, all 32 minutes counted.
It’s been that kind of season for the Lady Panthers, whose lone win came over General Trass, Arcadia used strong second and fourth stanzas to earn a 59-16 win inside the Lincoln Prep Gym.
Early on it looked like the Lady Panthers would make a game of it as they trailed only 6-3 with 2:42 left in the opening stanza before the Lady Hornets heated up to close out the quarter with a 10-3 advantage.
The second stanza was all Arcadia as the Lady Hornets outscored Lincoln Prep 33-2 in the stanza to bring a 43-5 lead into the locker room at halftime.
“We’re a young team just learning the game,” said Lady Panthers coach LaKeia Williams-Brown. “Only two of my girls had any basketball experience before coming out to play. So most of them are still learning the basics, and it shows.”
But that inexperience didn’t show in the third quarter when the Lady Panthers outscored Arcadia 9-7.
“The thing is, we have a long way to go, but they’ve made progress as the season has continued,” Williams-Brown said. “It’s not a lack of effort. These girls come out and work hard trying to learn and then playing the game. I applaud them all for that. But when the season started, we knew it would be like this. Arcadia is a good team and we competed at points in the game.
“And as we learn, we’ll put things together more and more, like we did in the game against General Trass. But right now we’re still very much a work in progress.”
The leader for the Lady Panthers in undeniably is Kayla Ferguson, who scored 14 of her team’s 16 total points.
Londyn Barnes scored Lincoln Prep’s other two points on a pair of free throws.
“Kayla is special and undoubtedly the leader of this team,” Williams-Brown said. “She’s one of the players we have who did have some experience before joining the team and she keeps getting better every game we play.
“I’m glad we have her because right now she’s the one who makes us go. But the other players keep getting better every game, too. We’re all just going to keep working hard and keep pushing this team forward into the future.”
