Baylor signee
Ja'Kobe Walter led the way with a game-high 21 points on 6 of 8 shooting while junior
Tyler McKinley provided a spark with 17 points and six rebounds. North Carolina pledge
Elliot Cadeau chipped in 11 points and five assists despite playing just 20 minutes due to foul trouble.
Link Academy used a strong start to jump ahead 14-8 after the first quarter and 35-25 at halftime. The Lions carried that momentum into the second half, going on a 9-1 run to go ahead 44-26 just under three minutes into the second half.
Although AZ Compass Prep was able to trim the deficit as low as 11 points in the fourth quarter, the Dragons never seriously threatened.
After pulling off upsets of MaxPreps Top 25 No. 3 Long Island Lutheran (Brookville, N.Y.) and National Top 10 No. 5 IMG Academy to advance to their first GEICO Nationals title game in program history, AZ Compass Prep (24-7) couldn't find a rhythm in the championship game. New Mexico pledge
Tru Washington finished with a team-high 13 points in the loss.
Link Academy (27-1) has now reached the GEICO Nationals title game
in each of its first two seasons of existence after finishing the year
with a record of 34-2 last year in its first varsity season.
Walter and Cadeau were the catalysts for the Show-Me
State powerhouse in three games at GEICO Nationals. Cadeau set an event record with 29 assists over the course of three games and averaged 9.7 points, 9.7 assists and 2.3 steals per game. Walter tallied a team-high 21.3 points per contest while shooting 58 percent from the field.
With just one loss coming into the event and a stronger resume than most of the teams in the field, Link Academy backed up the belief that it
deserved a
higher seed in the single-elimination tournament. With the win, head coach Bill Armstrong's program has arrived and looks to be a force to be reckoned with in the academy landscape moving forward.
Baylor signee Ja'Kobe Walter averaged a team-high 21.3 points per contest at GEICO Nationals. (Photo: Nicole Saracen)
