After a red-hot start, Newman couldn’t keep it going Saturday in a loss to Lincoln.

The Comets nailed their first three 3-pointers to take an early lead, but the Railsplitters used a huge run to take control in a 61-27 victory in their Silver Bracket semifinal at the Dixon Christmas Classic.

Lincoln advances to Monday’s fifth-place game to take on Burlington Central, while Newman will face Pecatonica for seventh place at 2 p.m.

Newman (10-4) led 10-3 after 3s by Gisselle Martin, Paizlee Williams and Elaina Allen in the first 1:40, but Lincoln (10-4) answered with a 22-0 run over a 10:27 span of the first and second quarters to take a 15-point lead; the Railsplitters led 27-13 at halftime.

“I feel like our energy started off really high, but once they started scoring, we started to get down,” Newman senior Lucy Oetting said. “Our energy was key early, but we didn’t keep it up.”

The Comets battled back within 29-19 after a three-point play from Oetting and a 3 by Williams in consecutive possessions early in the third quarter, but Lincoln scored the final 13 points of the period – mostly on point-blank shots to go with a 3 by Mia Clark – to lead 42-19 heading into the fourth.

Despite a 19-8 scoring edge by the Railsplitters over the final eight minutes, Newman made them work for those points until both teams emptied their benches with the running clock.

“One thing about this team, we never lay down, we always keep fighting,” Newman coach Herb Martin said. “But playing a bigger school, they’ve got a little size on us and that kind of wore on us. We had a couple of tough games [Friday] dealing with a lot of size, and with smaller bodies and not very high numbers [of players], it wore on us today. But we’ll get into practice and we’ll get it all figured out and we’ll be back ready to play on Monday.”

Lincoln nabbed 20 steals and forced 30 Newman turnovers, with 11 different players recording a steal, and held the Comets to 24 percent shooting (9-for-37).

“That’s kind of our goal with our defense, to fluster them,” Lincoln coach Cory Farmer said. “We don’t necessarily go after steals when we’re guarding the ball, but we just want to cause chaos and make them uncomfortable, make them throw crazy passes and then shoot the passing lanes.

“It’s just picking them up early and pressuring them, trying to get a count, trying to keep them in front of us, getting out on their shooters. It’s something we stressed before the game; it didn’t happen in the first two minutes, but after that, we picked it up.”

Clark led Lincoln with 14 points and three steals, and Lily Holmes had eight points and three assists. Paisley Holmes (4 assists, 2 steals), Grace Bivin (4 rebounds, 3 steals) and Sage Gilbert (2 steals) each scored seven points, and Mesa McCloud (2 assists) and Elizabeth Chen both scored six. Grace Schneider chipped in two points, six rebounds, three assists and three steals.

Oetting (9 rebounds, 4 steals), Martin (7 rebounds, 4 steals) and Williams (4 rebounds) scored seven points apiece for Newman. Allen (3 assists, 2 steals, 1 block) and Anna Propheter (2 steals) both scored three points, and Veronica Haley chipped in four rebounds and two assists.

Both Oetting and Martin saw the game as a learning experience that will help the Comets as the season progresses.

“Honestly, we’ve just got to work harder in practice,” Oetting said. “That’s really where we have to go hard if we want to succeed, and if we work hard in practice, it really shows in the games.”

“This is great for the rest of the season, going against that length and size of Lincoln,” Martin said. “That 3-2 [zone] they run with the three tall girls at the top made it very difficult for our guards – but I don’t look at it as a loss, I look at it as a lesson. We’ll get back and review some film, make some adjustments, and we’ll be better down the road.”