Hayes Gets Consolation on LuHi

NEW YORK, NY - Saturday's consolation game for the SNY Invitational turned out to be a surprise. Long Island Lutheran has a reputation of being one of the top teams in the entire area and many people would guess that they would have won the tournament.

They wouldn't be wrong for thinking that way. But instead of winning the thing, they exact opposite happened. Lutheran left empty handed, thanks to the quality play from Jeffrey Hayden and Clive Allen.

After losing to Cardozo last night, Lutheran was surely ready to take out their frustrations on Cardinal Hayes. Right?

Cardinal Hayes wasn't expected to win the consolation game against a talented Lutheran team, but their rugged determination changed everyone's expectations. They used an almost methodical attack to the rim by Hayden, a big four point play by Allen, and a blocked shot at the buzzer by Stephen Arobosegbe and the end result was an exciting win over Lutheran 54-52.

The game winning play was literally the last play of the game. Hayes was leading the game in the final seconds 54-51. Chris Atkinson was dribbling up the court for Lutheran and it looked like he was going to get an opportunity to tie the game with a three pointer. However, they were going to foul Atkinson and put him on the free throw line with 2 seconds left.

Atkinson made the first free throw to make it a two point game. Now the next thing would have been to intentionally miss the free throw, get the offensive rebound, and then score to tie the game and send it to overtime. Atkinson accomplished two of those things, surprisingly.

Atkinson missed the free throw, and somehow the rebound bounced right into his hands. It was going to be an easy three-foot shot, but Arobosegbe was right there and the seldom used big man swatted the shot. Moments later the buzzer sounded and the win was preserved.

Arobosegbe was in the right spot he was supposed to be in, at least according to him. "It [Ball] came off perfect off the rim for them" Arobosegbe said after the game. "I saw him try to lay it up, so I kind of moved over, which is what I'm supposed to do when I'm down there to help, and I ended up blocking the shot."

That was extremely close. That's why some coaches will just play in straight up and not start giving the opposition free points. Still, a defensive play was needed and it was made in an impressive fashion, a blocked shot.

The leading scorer for the game was Hayden who finished with 21 points. He just outworked whatever opposition was in front of him. He continuously beat his man down the court and finished inside with a lay-up. Hayden made 10 out of 13 shots.

Allen was the second leading scorer in the game for Cardinal Hayes. He finished with 16, but also made a big three pointer while getting fouled. Allen was asked how he felt when he made the big shot to help his team gain control; a smile came over his face.

"It felt good to finally hit a jump shot! I didn't hit one all weekend" Allen said.

Only Marvin Prochet hit double digits for Lutheran. He finished with 11 points and had 6 boards. Junior guard Devonte Green only played 14 minutes and was on the bench the entire fourth quarter.