On Wednesday night, February 18th, the Junior Varsity Lions took on the JEC Thunder in a win or go home matchup in the 1st round of the MYHSAL playoffs. The Lions had previously beaten JEC in the regular season 45-32 and were coming in to this game with a lot of confidence in their ability to beat them again.

After heart pounding pre-game introductions, in which the lights in YU’s Max Stern Athletic Center went out while smoke and lasers entered, the Lions came out to a rough start, losing the tip and immediately giving up a three-pointer to JEC’s Raanan Kimmel. Kimmel, who had been sick and only scored 3 points during their last matchup against MTA, was looking for some redemption. Later in the first half MTA ran into their biggest deficit of the game after giving up a three-pointer, followed by a three and one, and then an offensive rebound and a bucket off of the foul shot during the attempted 4-point play. Following this stretch, JEC was up 7 and the Lions were in desperate need of a comeback to keep their season alive. The Lions led by Binyamin Buchbinder (11 Points), Yehuda Buchbinder (6 Points), and Yehuda Colton (10 Points) managed to cut the deficit to a manageable 3 points by halftime. This was in major part due to Coach Weinberger’s decision to switch to a man defense to defend against JEC’s great 3-point shooting.

The Lions stormed out of the break to take a commanding 7-point lead, led by Aryeh Halpert’s (5 Points) clutch three-pointer and Josh Klein’s (4 Points) 3-point play on an and-1. Assisted by the great rebounding and aggressiveness of Zack Fish (who had just returned from Israel) as well as Marc Giahn’s clutch free throw shooting, the Lions pulled away with an 11-point victory. The Lions will play HAFTR in the 2nd round of the playoffs on their quest for a championship run.

By Aryeh Halpert