Lawrence Defeated by Massapequa, 65-52

Live by the press, die by the press.

An attempt to use their speed and quickness to overcome a significant height disadvantage, Lawrence scrambled and hustled but were ultimately undone by a well-prepared Massapequa team in a 65–52 loss in the "Battle of the Classes" Basketball Tournament at Long Beach High School on Saturday afternoon.

The Golden Tornadoes were led by Eddie Robinson's 15 points.  Ibraheem Shamseldin chipped in with 11 points and freshman Dwayne Daniel also had 10 in the loss.

Lawrence head coach Pete Linderman tried to speed things up and force Massapequa into turnovers for the entire game, but the Chiefs used good spacing and ball movement to shred the extended Lawrence defense for easy layups, open looks from the perimeter and plenty of room to crash the boards for second chance baskets.

"Our initial full court pressure was there," Linderman said. "But we lapsed in our second part of the press."

Having played against similar teams like Hempstead, Uniondale and Freeport in recent years, Massapequa was ready to step out of their half court comfort zone to deal with Lawrence's havoc wreaking defensive style.

 "Great effort," said Massapequa head coach Marty Voight. "It's a tough team to prepare against. They like to go up and down and we like to settle down and execute. I'm proud of our guys. We worked hard on that all week."

Senior forward Ryan Van Buren poured in 23 points and grabbed ten rebounds, five of them offensive. Junior forward Chris Husmann had 17 points including three 3-point plays and an emphatic two handed fast break dunk to seal the deal in the final minutes.

"Great game," Husmann said. "Normally we come out slow on Saturday mornings but we came out firing."

Despite their struggles, Lawrence kept the game close until the final frame. Daniel hit a three-point field goal at the seven minute of the fourth quarter mark to pull Lawrence within one at 45-44, but the Chiefs immediately went on an 11–0 to respond and never looked back.

"We just have to play together more," Robinson said. "It's a long season. It's not going to be hard to recover [from the loss]. Just have to go back to practice and work hard to get better."