South Shore’s last game was nine days ago, but the Vikings weren’t necessarily off. They spent each day together practicing and bonding off the court, dealing with the two forfeits the PSAL handed down from an altercation with Thomas Jefferson on Jan. 5.
The result was their best win of the year, a 67-62 victory over Brooklyn AA leader Lincoln, ranked second in New York City by The Post and 21st nationally by USA Today, in Coney Island.
“The two forfeits gave us time to recuperate, gave us time to think about our mistakes,” senior guard Danny Thompson said. “But it also gave us hunger to go out there and play with urgency.”
Thompson scored a team-high 18 points, Shamiek Sheppard had 13 points and 12 rebounds and Terrence Samuel added eight points and five assists before fouling out early in the third quarter.
Shaquille Stokes led Lincoln with 30 points and Isaiah Whitehead followed with 12 points for the Railsplitters (15-2, 10-1 Brooklyn AA), who dropped their first league game and have now lost two of three after starting the year with 14 straight wins.
Despite missing starting forward Wayne Morgan (suspended for incident), South Shore (9-9, 5-6) came out on fire, leading 25-10 after the first quarter and 43-23 by halftime. The bulge ballooned to 26 at one point before Lincoln came storming back. Taking advantage of Samuel fouling out in the third quarter, the Railsplitters rallied and went ahead by one in the fourth quarter.
But Thompson and freshman Tyrone Johnson made several clutch free throws down the stretch, six in a row in fact by Johnson at one point. He also had two steals in the final minutes as South Shore pulled off the shocker.
“I give them a lot of credit,” South Shore coach Mike Beckles said. “They hung in there and got the win.”
He later said: “We want to be playing this type of basketball going into the later part of the season. This is one of the best teams we’ve had and I have high expectations for us. We have to continue to work hard.”
Aside from the two forfeits, the Vikings have now won five league games in a row after starting out 0-6 in Brooklyn AA and have beaten Jefferson and Lincoln back-to-back.
“Our confidence has gone up tremendously,” Thompson said. “Beating Jefferson gave us a lot of confidence to go into Lincoln. We feel we’re a top team now.”