In the final year of the classic Jefferson High School Gymnasium, Jefferson agreed to host a tripleheader for the second-straight year against visiting Lynbrook. The classic gym lived up to its lore Friday night with a raucous three-game set of matchups pitting the visiting Vikings against the host Grizzles.

In the first game after the Christmas holiday, the fans were out in force, providing a substantial noise machine in the gym, which was aided by the cheer squad, and a PA man who actually pronounced names correctly.

In the freshman game, Coach Ajay Singh found himself short on players, with only six members of his traditional roster on hand. He would be aided by two freshman from the JV team who dropped down for the contest - "Fish" McCahill, and "Yung J" Gao. Behind for basically the entire game, Coach Ajay knew at half time the team was going to win. "I just knew it, I knew we were going to come back" he said in the aftermath of the victory. JV Coach Jeff Bale had a feeling the frosh were going to make a run as well. "I hustled through my pre-game because I wanted my squad right behind the bench for the final few minutes. With the sunken floor, man, the energy can be crazy out there." The Freshmen backcourt pressure rustled out several turnovers and the Vikes were able to grab key rebounds, chipping away in the last few minutes. The Vikes nearly blew their chance by stumbling on a drive and throwing the ball out of bounds, but were able to come back after successfully defending their hoop with the score tied 38-38. It was then that "Yung J" was able to iso against a defender and get to the rim. With a double team coming, he put up a mediocre floater which hit rim twice and bounced off, but he immediately got his own rebound and put back the winner off the glass. Jefferson called a timeout as the Viking bench celebrated with less than five seconds left. One desperation trey later, the Vikings had pulled out the comeback victory, 40-38.

In the JV game, the Grizzles came out hot and hit two quick threes in the first few moments of the game and then blitzed the Vikings with incredible intensity on defense. It was a slow start for the Vikings, but ultimately the game remained high energy and competitive. Going into the half it was 26-14 Grizzles. Coach Bale said he told his players at half that the balls were going to start dropping and to expect an even more intensive half. The Vikings were able to claw back into the game and with the third quarter gone, they'd won the quarter and closed the gap with the Grizzlies, now within single digits. The Vikes did run into foul trouble with three players fouling out. Coach Bale even had the unexpected situation that when he went to send a player in during the final minute, the player didn't have his jersey on. "First time that happened in my coaching career" Bale said after the game, admitting that he almost laughed he was so surprised. Two fourth quarter threes by Kevin "I steal my brother's shoes" Li cut the lead to six but it was a few possessions too few to make the comeback complete. Final score 48-42 Grizzles.

So far, only eight points had separated winners and losers in the first two games, and as more fans filled the stands, the stage was set for the last game of the evening - the Varsity matchup. As high energy as the first two, both teams looked solid early, hitting a litany of treys and playing very physical defense. At half it was the Vikings up eight... as for the second half, perhaps less said the better. In the words of one crowd game observer... "Lynbrook Varsity boys lack toughness; subsequently S*** bed." Grizzles win by three.

Frosh returns with three non-league contests on the week of January 5th. JV has completed their non-league schedule and starts league next week. Varsity hosts Alhambra on December 31st at Lynbrook before league begins a few days following.