Basketball Recap: East Lincoln Takes Loss Despite Strong Efforts from Grant Lawless and Jaxon Dollar

It's hard to turn regular season success into postseason wins, a fact East Lincoln can now relate to. They took a 65-53 hit to the loss column at the hands of the Dudley Panthers on Friday. The Mustangs were not able to make up for their defeat to the Panthers from their previous meeting back in February of 2023.

Jaxon Dollar

Steals

02/28/25 @ Dudley	3
02/25/25 @ Hickory	3
02/21/25 vs North Lincoln	2
02/18/25 @ Hickory	3
02/17/25 vs North Iredell	3
+ 5 more games

Jaxon Dollar and Grant Lawless certainly did their best on Friday to avoid the loss. Dollar went 7-for-8 on his way to 20 points in addition to eight boards and four blocks, while Lawless almost dropped a double-double with 12 points and nine rebounds. Dollar has been hot for a while, having also posted two or more steals the last ten times he's played. Another player making a difference was Davis Hill, who posted seven points.

Carlos 'CJ' Neely continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines for Dudley, dropping a double-double with 23 points and 11 boards. Cortney 'CJ' Jones was another key player, shooting 46% from the field en route to 17 points.

East Lincoln's loss dropped their record down to 20-9. As for Dudley, they are on a roll lately: they've won 11 of their last 12 games. That's provided a nice bump to their 19-7 record this season.

East Lincoln does not have any more games scheduled as of now. As for Dudley, they will be playing in front of their home fans against Ben L. Smith at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday. One thing working in Ben L. Smith's favor is that they have posted at least 55 points in their last eight matchups.