Lincoln serves South Shore 4th loss in a row

BROOKLYN, NY - Early in the season, a big and mobile South Shore quickly moved up the NYCHoops.net rankings, peaking at #3. Since then, the # 8 Vikings have been in freefall losing 3 games in a row. Tuesday versus newly #3 ranked Abraham Lincoln was an opportunity for the Vikings to get back on the winning track and stop the bleeding. Instead the Railsplitters caused the Canarsie squad to hemorrhage, 75 – 44 in their worse loss to date.

“We’ve got to turn the corner and hopefully be a better team in 2018,” said a dejected South Shore Head Coach Shawn “Smoke” Mark. “We can’t get overconfident and feel like the game is won. I gotta do a better job as well.”

With the Vikings resume of early wins, Railsplitters head coach Dwayne “Tiny” Morton said that he was initially worried about the game against South Shore but that aura of invincibility dissolve. “I knew South Shore was beatable when Robeson beat them. I was a little stressed out before that.”

Going into the game, Morton said the strategy was simply to take away the Vikings strengths. “Certain teams allow certain players to control their offense and their defense. When you take away some of their strengths and let some other guys do some things, then you see how good the team is.” For Coach Morton, those “certain” Vikings players were Kadary Richmond ‘19 and Sekou Sylla ‘18.

The Railsplitters went into attack mode from the opening tip-off with Jasiah Lewis ‘18 scoring from the arc followed by a strong drive by John Wilson ‘20. Defensively, Lincoln turned being undersized into an asset, swiping at and trapping Viking guards at every opportunity. Their peskiness resulted in turnovers and when South Shore did manage to get to the rim they were often met with blocks from the uber-athletic KC Ndefo ‘18.

The first quarter ended in a tie as Sylla and Isaiah Richard spearheaded a late Vikings run punctuated by a dunk from Feme Odukale ‘19. At first, South Shore weathered the storm and even led midway through the second quarter as Richmond and Odukale found daylight, but Wilson went into overdrive, playing like a boy possessed. At the half, Lincoln was leading 28 – 22 and the Vikings never saw the lead again.

In the third quarter, the Vikings were held to 8 points as the Railsplitters swarming defense simply wore South Shore down to the nub. Ndefo dominated the boards and issued some thunderous dunks in transition that set off the Coney Island high school faithful. Out scored by 17 points, the Vikings deficit grew to 23 points by the end of the third quarter. The fourth quarter was simply garbage time with Lincoln cruising to a 31-point win.

Ndefo was the high scorer for Abraham Lincoln with triple double (14 points, 14 rebounds & 10 blocks) Lewis and Wilson added 13 points and 12 points respectively. Richmond led South Shore with 16 points while Sylla was limited to 5 points and no other Vikings player achieving double-digits.

This is the Vikings third league loss in a row and its fourth loss in a row overall. Their record falls to 3 – 4 while the Railsplitters improve to 5 – 1.