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Sports

Lady Golden Tornadoes Drop Third Straight Game

Strong individual moments of basketball not enough to overcome Kennedy in 52-28 loss.

Strong individual efforts and "highlight film moments" offered Lady Golden Tornadoes basketball fans a few opportunities to cheer, but were not enough to overcome a 1-2 offensive punch in a non-league contest at Kennedy-Bellmore on Monday.

The Kennedy Lady Cougars jumped out to a 12-3 first-quarter lead against the visiting Golden Tornadoes and never looked back, dominating inside and out on offense and winning by a score of 52-28 on Monday night.

Lawrence's big sophomore center Nicole Robinson (12 points, 5 rebounds) had some powerful moments in the paint. Fellow sophomore Natalie Leger (2 points, 4 rebounds) was voracious in perimeter defense. And talented Lawrence guard Farrah Desvarieux (13 points, 3 rebounds, 3 steals), a senior leader, demonstrated ball-handling acumen to write home about.

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And in the process of running up a double digit, Kennedy got itself into foul trouble early, offering Lawrence plenty of opportunities at the charity stripe to climb back into it.

But the name of the game was opportunity lost, with too many shots from the foul line and in open play going awry for the Golden Tornadoes.

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"It was probably the poorest shooting game we've had in a while," said coach George Klein after the loss. "We never got into a rhythm."

In fact, Kennedy ran out to a 14-2 lead in the first quarter.

The quick start set Lawrence on its heels and they never seemed to recover, though in both the second and third quarters, the Golden Tornadoes showed they had plenty of fight in them. An effort to get the ball inside to Robinson paid dividends to open the second quarter, as Kennedy's collapse offense on the center put her at the foul line  for a couple of points early, and freed Desvarieux to make use of her quickness on the outside.

Down 17-5, the senior guard converted on three in a row as Lawrence mounted a 6-2 run — first on a pure arcing shot from the perimeter, then on a penetrating move into the paint, and finally on a feed from Miriam Vainblat off a fast break.

"She's quick!" said Kennedy's Carly Thea of Desvarieux. "I was on number 10 to start (Natalie Leger) but it was rough to defend her."

At the 2:30 mark, Lawrence had gotten the margin down to 8 points. But that's as close as it would get. Kennedy closed out the second half with ten unanswered points.

And a furious start to the third quarter from Lawrence — an 8-6 run that saw Robinson knock down six points and Leger score on a fast break off a Desvarieux steal — was not enough to close the gap.

Thea, combined with fellow senior guard Ally Keller, accounted for 36 of the Lady Cougars scoring output for the evening.

"We came out flat," Klein said. "But we'll learn from this. We'll live to play another day."

After a final non-league match on Wednesday, the Lady Golden Tornadoes get their league season underway on Friday against the Hewlett Lady Bulldogs at 4:30 p.m.

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