Campus Magnet outgunned in opening loss

Defending regular-season champion Campus Magnet hit a wall to start its drive for a repeat Queens ‘AA’ title on Tuesday, December 2, as the Bulldogs were overcome by pair of Long Island City sharpshooters, 81-79, on opening night.
Senior guard Aziz Raji and senior forward Kaseem Harris were Long Island City’s stars from long range, each of them totaling 24 points by the end of the night. But the most proximate hero was sophomore guard/forward Mamadou Sakho, who broke a 79-79 tie by putting in a close-range shot with seconds remaining.
After the final buzzer sounded, the LIC players were mobbed by gleeful fans at the center of the court, and then took their celebration to the bench and locker room. Head coach Harley Watstein was too choked up to talk until he spent a few minutes inside with his team.
“I told the team that in my nine or ten years of coaching, we’ve had some wins that were exciting,” he said afterward. “But this is the first time we beat Campus Magnet. … We want to show that we can put Long Island City on the map, that we can come out and surprise people.”
“We all feel good. It was a big victory for all of us,” said senior center Moez Abouelnaga. “But we expected it. Our coach gave us a lot of confidence.”
Watstein said he spent some time the previous weekend scouting the Bulldogs in green (not to be confused with his Bulldogs in white) at their scrimmage at York College. He believed then that they were beatable.
Indeed, on Tuesday, not all cylinders were smoothly firing for Campus Magnet. On offense, their on-court movement was sluggish at times and prompted a few loud exclamations from head coach Charles Granby; more detrimentally, it prompted Long Island City’s defensive rebounders to heave full-court passes more than once past an unready Campus Magnet defense.
On defense, Campus Magnet followed a dazzling first half with an inability to control Long Island City’s three-point snipers in the second. Early on, had the crowd in attendance not been decidedly partial to Long Island City, a barrage of “oohs” would surely have been elicited every time an LIC forward was stuffed dramatically. Sophomore Jagger Freeman, senior Dexter James, and senior Kelvin Lewis were all among the Magnet players who kept an opposing shot from gaining flight.
But in the second half, with Campus Magnet leading 44-28, Long Island City’s Raji-led run put some fear into Granby and his bench, even as Sasha Clarida, who totaled 30 points, put a few dents in Long Island City’s momentum with a pair of smooth-as-silk three-pointers.
In one notable sequence in the first quarter, Clarida swished a three-pointer, drove right through Long Island City’s defenders for a smooth layup, and then ended the white Bulldogs’ next possession with a defensive rebound that bounced to the left corner of the court.
“I haven’t seen a kid that good as a junior in a long time,” Watstein said of Clarida. “He was the heart of a big-time player.”
With about three minutes left in the third quarter, a three-point play by LIC’s Konstantin Kapelonis, a junior guard, left Campus Magnet clinging to a 54-49 lead and elicited numerous groans from the men in green. With the clock expiring for the period, Raji re-introduced himself with a three-pointer that tied the score at 58 and caused the bleacher section to explode.
It is clear that Long Island City will likely not replicate the 5-13 record they stumbled to in 2007-08. While the Bulldogs lost leading scorer Josh Grey and freshman point guard William Dobie to transfers in the off-season, their team is otherwise aging gracefully - Raji, Harris, and senior guard Corey McKinney represent three more starting seniors than LIC could claim to have last season.
All five of the Bulldogs’ starters, moreover, are capable athletes, and all five demonstrated quickness at various points against Campus Magnet. Raji shared a bond with the painted area all evening, slipping his way from outside the arc to inside the rim in the third quarter - and making three Magnet blockers look a little silly in the process. One minute later, he flew in from the far left side and drew a defensive foul at the apex of his flight, all without the assistance of a cape.
Magnet, it should be noted, was not with its full starting lineup on Tuesday. Senior Chad Coachman, foreseen as a major offensive threat, is not yet eligible to start and was not present.
That said, this dramatic upset was unexpected and it shows a pair of teams heading in very opposite directions as the 2008-09 season unfolds.