WALES – Tuesday night’s game between Lincoln Academy and Oak Hill was a good test for two teams going through their own transition periods in the KVAC.

Lincoln Academy took home the passing grade.

Oak Hill took home an incomplete on its report card.

Behind an outstanding all-around game from Patrick Howell (21 points, 10 rebounds, six steals), the Eagles jumped out to an early 10-point lead and cruised to a 63-40 victory, their first of the season.

“We’re still kind of passive. We need to get more aggressive,” said Lincoln coach Nick DePatsy, the former Georges Valley coach in his first year with the Eagles. “It’s a challenge, but we’re working hard in practice and you can see little bits and pieces coming together.”

Howell is the only senior to see regular time for the Eagles. Oak Hill plays four seniors, but the Raiders have two players who haven’t played before and an all new starting five.

“Our most important thing right now is trying to settle down on offense,” Oak Hill coach Jim Ford said. “We haven’t been able to get into a comfort zone running our motion yet. Our guards are just out of synch with our forwards right now trying to get the ball into good position. The timing of our offense is off.”

The Raiders (0-2) shot just 27 percent from the field and had difficulty with Lincoln’s full-court pressure, turning the ball over 26 times. They did get fine games from guards Mike Eaton (15 points, 14 rebounds, five assists) and Ethan Guerette (nine points, all on 3-pointers), but their new motion offense didn’t have very much motion and, as a result, very few good shots.

“We’ve got to practice with more intensity when we scrimmage each other because we’re having trouble with game-level intensity. It’s taking us out of our offense,” Ford said. “To run any offense, you’ve got to have players that are totally in synch with each other and right now, we’re not.”

Lincoln opened up a 10-point lead less than halfway through the first period. Howell and Stephen Williams (11 points, seven rebounds) controlled the paint and gave the Eagles (1-1) numerous second chance points. Howell excelled from the perimeter as well, drilling two of his four first-half threes in the second quarter to help put the Eagles up 38-19 at the half.

The Raiders made a brief run to open the second half to get the deficit down to 15, but a reverse layup by Devon Peaslee (10 points) and back-to-back hoops by Howell put the momentum back in Lincoln’s favor.

“There’s some nice things happening,” Ford said. “Mike Eaton right now is playing his heart out.

“And Ethan Guerette can shoot the basketball. If we can find ways to free him up, he might get us three or four threes a game. We just have to find a way to get comfortable on offense now.”