Sean Sauter leads Massapequa to victory over Freeport to clinch playoff spot
Massapequa senior Sean Sauter scored 14 points in the team's victory to clinch a playoff spot. Credit: Peter Frutkoff
Massapequa met the biggest moment of its season thus far with a hailstorm of three-pointers on Thursday night.
Facing a visiting Freeport team that already had beaten them this season, the Chiefs made eight shots from outside the arc, including four by senior center Tom Spero and three by senior guard Sean Sauter, as they posted a 52-43 Nassau AA-I boys basketball victory and punched its ticket to the postseason.
The stakes were high with the Red Devils right behind them in the standings and the backdrop rich with history after a pre-game ceremony honoring alumnus and long-time coach Martin Voigt for earning his 300th career victory last week. Then Massapequa (11-7, 5-6) went out and scored 22 points in the first quarter to build a lead Freeport would whittle to four but could not surmount.
In that first quarter, Sauter had 11 of his 14 points including his trio of treys and senior point guard Logan Tucker had all of his five points.
“When we make our three-pointers we can be a very dangerous team,” Sauter said. “We missed out on the [postseason] last year and no one was happy about that. But making the playoffs is only our first goal.”
“They knew the importance of this game and accepted the challenge that was in front of them,” said Voigt, who was a player on the last Massapequa team to win a county title in 1977. “We play hard and our players believe in each other.”
Freeport (6-12, 3-8) trailed 22-12 at the end of the first quarter and then rode the smooth scoring of Tah’Jae Jones back into the game. He had nine of his 18 points in the second and third quarters and when Amir Mujahir sank a layup right at the end of the third the Devils were within 39-35.
Massapequa handled that little crisis by scoring nine unanswered points to start the fourth and pull away. The run was marked by effort plays including Spero’s steal that went for a Sauter layup, Paul Buonaguro’s basket off an offensive rebound and a put-back that drew a foul for a three-point play by Tyler Sohn. Spero would add the fourth of his four threes and Tucker kept the Chiefs’ poise, working the clock with his ballhandling to close it out.
“We were hyped when the game started because with them so close [in the standings] it felt like a ‘win-or-go-home’ situation and we came out strong,” Spero said. “And when they made it close at the end of the third quarter, we knew it was time to step up our effort.”
Spero had 14 points, Buonaguro had 12 points, Tucker had five assists and Sauter had four assists for the Chiefs.
Massapequa, however, did not stage any sort of celebration after the final horn.
“It’s not how we do things at Massapequa for a lot of reasons,” Spero said. “For one, we know what it’s like to be in [Freeport’s] shoes and lose a game that eliminates you. And second, this is not the final goal, just making the playoffs. When we play like tonight we can beat a lot of teams. We want to see how far we can go.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.