By Anish Vasudevan and Bill Cheng

With a 1-1 record coming into the new year, the boys JV team was looking for a win to propel themselves into a three day weekend. MVHS maintained a steady lead for the first half of the game, they fell apart towards the end resulting in a loss to LHS with a score of 62-68.

The first half went smoothly for MVHS as they were able to keep their lead ending the half with a score of 39-31. This was mainly because of their aggressive press defense stopping Lynbrook HS from crossing the half court line. Sophomore Sanjay Gollapudi reflected on the usage of the press defense.

“The first few times we were in the press they got a couple of steals because the other team was feeling kind of rushed,” Gollapudi said. “That was the main goal of our press and we kept running it because it was working.”

However, the second half proved to be a struggle for MVHS. Taking their lead for granted their harmful defensive mindset started to die down. Lynbrook HS took advantage of this scoring a lot more than the first half. Gollapudi talked about the team’s play in the second half.

“We didn't communicate, so they got easy baskets,” Gollapudi said. “And on offense we were rushing too many possessions and so we squandered the lead.”

MVHS had a solid lead through the third quarter starting with a score of 52-40. However, in the last quarter the team, flat footed, lost all momentum letting Lynbrook HS score 28 points in the fourth. At the final buzzer, the game ended with a score of 68-62 leaving the MVHS team astonished as to how they blew such a huge lead.

“Even though they did get some transition points in the first half, we were able to stop it in the second,” Gollapudi said. “But, in the end we lost.”