The Roslyn Wolverines earned their third victory of the season with a thrilling 22 - 18 win over a strong Long Island Lightning team on December 18. The Wolverines, coached by Howie Busch, Jason Schwartz and Dave Roberts, are a fourth grade travel team playing at Island Garden and are now 3-1.

The team is defined by its defense - a swarming, smothering 1-3-1 half-court trap. According to Coach Busch, "The greatest thing about this team is that they love to play defense. They play so hard - they hustle, they're aggressive and they dive for every loose ball. Most teams just don't play as hard as us and that's what got us the win against the Lightning on Sunday."

While previous victories over St. Bernard (27-15) and Jericho (42-9) were in the bag early on, the game against the Lightning went down to the wire as the team got its first taste of adversity - playing without superstar point guard Evan Birnbaum; losing versatile starter Josh Herman to injury in the first half; and playing without the virtually unstoppable Sam Gubernikoff for the entire fourth quarter because of sheer exhaustion from leading the team for the first 3 quarters.

It was back and forth the entire game. With a minute-and-a-half to go and the score deadlocked at 18, Jordan Roberts got great position on the offensive boards, went high for the rebound and hit a tough shot over the taller Lightning defender to give his team a 20-18 lead. As was the case all day, the Wolverines stifling D stole the ball on the ensuing play and instead of trying to run out the clock they did what they do best - they attacked. The Wolverines grabbed yet another offensive rebound with 30 seconds to go and Zach Busch found Shaun Aggarwal at the foul line, and Aggarwal didn't hesitate - his sweet jumper found the bottom of the net to ice the game.

After the game, Coach Jason Schwartz said, "I'm really proud of all of them because this was truly a team victory. Every single kid did something to help us win that game." Jordan Roberts had the huge offensive rebound and game-winning put-back. Sam Gubernikoff was all over the court, scoring early and often, running the point and playing great defense. When we needed someone to step up in Sam's absence, Shaun Aggarwal stepped up to control the point, which he did beautifully on both offense and defense...and let's not forget the aforementioned game-icing shot. As usual, Daniel Zhu controlled the boards, hit a big basket and played great defense. Jake Rentzer played his most aggressive game, grabbing several rebounds and making a nice basket. Alec Levy was very aggressive offensively and defensively and hit a huge second half bucket. Charlie Schwartz played an amazing bottom of our hallmark 1-3-1 defense, getting several steals throughout the game. Josh Herman hustled like crazy and played great defense before getting hurt early on. And Zach "the pickpocket" Busch was all over the court, grabbing several big rebounds and continuously ripping the ball out of the hands of the surprised Lightning team, resulting in 10-15 jump balls and steals.

Perhaps Coach Dave Roberts summed it up best. "Winning this game in the fourth quarter without Birnbaum, Herman and Gubernikoff says a lot about this team. This victory and this team remind me of the 1980 US Olympic Hockey team that won the gold medal - the Miracle on Ice. Well, these guys are the Miracle on Hardwood."