At this time in 1999... a difficult end to a great season for Lehman Boys Basketball

It was a Monday evening in 1999. The Lehman Cavaliers boys basketball team just concluded a successful 10-10 regular season under first year Head Coach Jerry Fries. The 1998-99 Lehman Boys Basketball Team was good: Bryan Tobe, Eric Hewitt, Ben Kohlhorst, Tommy Middleton, Kyle Goubeaux were seniors, Jake Sinclair, Tony Staley, Tony Cianciolo, Ryan Ratermann, Sam Mikolajewski were juniors and Matt Hare and Derek Orlik were sophomores. There was no time to rest for the Cavaliers after their regular season finale as they faced off against the Greenview Rams in the Division 4 Sectional Tournament at UD Arena. The winner would get 12 days of practice before their next game, a week from the coming Friday. Greenview led us by 3 at the half and it was a hard fought game for the second half. In the 4th quarter, the game was tied and Lehman was in possession. Sam Mikolajewski missed a jumper and then Tony Cianciolo missed a lay-up after a steal. Greenview hit a three to put them up 3 with 2:30 minutes left and then we missed a shot and they made two free throws. After a Middleton basket that cut the lead to 2, Greenview missed a free throw. Middleton got a three blocked right in front of the Lehman bench and there was no foul called. Greenview then made one of its next two foul shots. Bryan Tobe grabbed the rebound, there was 5 seconds left and we were out of timeouts. Goubeaux and Middleton were open on the wings. Tobe got to the mid court stripe and launched desperation three that was off as the horn sounded. Greenview beat us 42-39, ending our season at 10-11. I have been in a lot of Locker Rooms in my lifetime. That post game Locker Room at UD Arena was emotional. Bryan Tobe could not compose himself. The seniors were crushed, Sam Mikolajewski was crying. I have said this for a long time and I will say this again, the 1998-99 Lehman Boys basketball team was good enough to win a district championship and they didn’t. They were better then a 10-11 team. Middleton and Goubeaux were the best senior backcourt we had since Aaron Nuss and Mitch Hoying from the 1994-95 season, Henry Stolly’s first year. To go from 7 wins combined the previous two years to 10 in 1998-99, was a tremendous accomplishment, we should have won more.