February 21, 2008
Needles Gets Revenge on Lincoln

By Dave Maxwell, Staff Writer

It was two for the money at the Southern 2A boys’ championship February 16 at Del Sol High in Las Vegas. Stevie Kidd and Darra Russell were all Needles needed. Together they accounted for 55 of the Mustangs points in a 65-55 win over Lincoln County.

Twice this season, Needles has lost to the Lynx in close games, but this time they didn’t let that happen. Forging a 19-8 first quarter lead, the Mustangs (18-6) pretty much kept Lincoln (19-7) about 10 points away the rest of the game.

Needles Coach Jeff Plank said his game plan for this third meeting, was to “rebound well and defend Lincoln’s outside shooting.” In addition, the post defense continually boxed out Shinkle or Bernal from doing much on the inside, he said.

Russell hit for 10 of his 30 points, in the fourth quarter and had five 3-pointers overall. Kidd pumped in an additional 25 points.

Kevin Hannig led Lincoln with 20 points. Dantley Walker had 11 and Chris Bernal tallied 10.

Coach Mike Wood said while Lincoln has been real lucky the past several games to “hang around and pull it out at the end,” this time they just couldn’t get close enough to hang around at the end. “They had a good game plan against us and kept good control of Dantley and limited our post play,” he said.

At State, Lincoln plays Right of Passage at 8:20 pm Friday at North Valleys High School and Needles plays Pershing County (Lovelock) at 4:40 pm. The Saturday championship game at the Lawlor Center is at 1:40 pm.