Mineola Boys Basketball Claims First-Round Victory Over Lynbrook

Even the mightiest of engines needs a bit of a spark every once in a while to get it started.

With Lynbrook effectively guarding Mineola’s Big Three of Mike Waszczuk, Brian Gaffney and Malcolm Brown, coach Jim Hegmann had to do something.

He chose to send in Steven Gessner off the bench.

And he got 21 points for his decision.

“He uses his size and he’s a smart little player,” Hegmann would later say of the 6’3” sophomore’s career-high.

“He likes me off the bench,” Gessner would later say of his coach. “He put me in and he was just telling me like ‘keep working hard, you’re doing great,’ he goes ‘ this is what we’ve been working for all year and this is your time’.”

Mineola had beaten Lynbrook earlier in the year, but that didn’t stop the Owls from making a run for it in the second half before eventually falling 60-48.

“I knew they were a good team, they’re a tough team, they’ve got shooters,” Hegmann said. “The first game was a tough game. We knew it was a good team even though their record doesn’t show it.”

In the second half you could have heard the wind collectively escape the Mineola High School gym when Waszczuk was brought down on a foul onto his right shoulder – the same one that he had been sustained an injury on earlier in the school year – but was able to get up under his own power.

The Mustangs never trailed in the game, continuing their fast-break offense despite several back-and-forth turnovers in the third.

Still, it gives reason enough to celebrate getting past the first round for the conference co-champions.

“We can move the ball fast and we can also very good defense, that’s probably of our best defensive game like all season so we’ve been working hard for it,” Gessner said. “We can’t have a day off, that’s how we got here, we don’t have a day off, we just keep working hard.”

“Everything’s great you know?” Hegmann said. “Keep winning and hopefully we can keep having this crowd.”

And keep sparking the engine.