SEATTLE, Wash. – After three games in three days, Seattle simply had more gas in the tank.
 
In the finale of the Elgin Baylor Classic, the host RedHawks (6-3) jumped out to a 38-15 lead at halftime and survived a season-best 23-2 run by Longwood to pull away with a 70-50 win on the final day of their home tournament at the RedHawk Center.
 
The win was the third straight for Seattle, which got 22 points from forward Matej Kavas and 19 from guard Morgan Means to become only the second team to score 70 points against the defensive-minded Lancers (5-3) this season.
 
The Western Athletic Conference's preseason No. 3 pick, Seattle ends the three-day tournament as the unofficial champions of the round-robin showcase after taking down Denver, Fairfield and Longwood on consecutive days to become the WAC's first six-win team this season.
 
Longwood, meanwhile, finished 1-2 at the tournament with a win over Fairfield Friday, doing so without leading scorer Isaiah Walton, who was sidelined for all three games. The Lancers end November with five wins, their most in the 15-year Division I era and tied for the most in the program's 41-year history.

Kavas played a key role in dashing Longwood's shot at breaking that mark Sunday, shooting 8-of-12 from the floor and 4-of-8 from three-point range while grabbing a career-high 13 rebounds for his second career double-double. That performance, along with a 14-point, 12-rebound double-double from 6-8, 230-pound forward Myles Carter, helped Seattle become the first team to outrebound Longwood this season, doing so 40-37 en route to handing the Lancers a 20-point loss that was their first defeat of more than one possession this season.
 
"I thought in the first half we were really tentative," said Longwood head coach Griff Aldrich. "We didn't make our shots, but I thought they were a little bit intimidated by the big boy, Myles Carter, and that's just not our style. You have to play fearlessly, you have to let the ball fly, you have to shoot it, you have to play aggressively."
 
It took Longwood until the second half to regain that fearlessness, doing so behind junior guard Lorenzo Phillips, who finished a career-high 22 points on 8-of-16 shooting and four three-pointers. Senior forward Spencer Franklin added 10 points and six rebounds off the bench and paired with Phillips to become catalysts for Longwood's 23-2 run in the second half, teaming up to pour in 17 points during a one-sided stretch that cut Seattle's lead from 29 to 10.
 
"You have to drive it, and if you have a shot, you have to be willing to shoot it," Aldrich said. "Shabooty  [Phillips] did do that and obviously gave us a lot of energy. But a lot of that started on the defensive end. We were really playing much better defensively in the second half, and looking at the percentages, it reflects that."
 
Longwood cut Seattle's .433 shooting percentage in the first half to just .345 in the second half while bumping their own from .222 to .414. But that surge proved too little, too late after the Lancers struggled to solve Seattle's defense in the first half and went scoreless over the final 9:47 entering halftime. The RedHawks turned that drought into an 18-0 run that featured 11 points from Means and ballooned their lead from 20-15 to 38-15 by the break.
 
Longwood missed 11 consecutive field goal attempts and turned the ball over seven times during that span, while Seattle scored on five of its final six possessions leading into halftime.
 
"They had seven offensive rebounds in the first half, and that's a major issue," Aldrich said. "You can't have that happen and expect to be successful. Our guards dropped the ball on that a few times, and we tried to jump with them a few times, and you're just not going to be successful if you give up seven offensive rebounds in a half."
 
Seattle appeared poised to extend that run after intermission, scoring the first eight points of the half to jump ahead 46-15 with 18:00 to play, but Phillips took over shortly after to send Longwood on its biggest run of the season. Sparked by his pull-up jumper at 17:40, the Lancers outscored Seattle 23-2 over the next 8:07 to trim that deficit back to 10 points and ultimately cut it to nine on a three-pointer by Phillips with 7:07 to play.
 
Phillips was near-perfect during that rally, scoring 11 consecutive points, hitting three three-pointers and knocking down 6-of-8 field goal attempts on the way to his first 20-point game as a Lancer. However, Seattle turned the tide once more after Phillips' final three of the game, scoring nine straight points to reclaim a double-digit lead and ride that cushion to the 20-point final.
 
The loss signals the end of Longwood's most grueling stretch of the non-conference portion of the schedule, which featured four consecutive road games and a week-long road trip away from home.
 
"Like I said to the team, ultimately this is a tough trip," Aldrich said. "Three games in three days across the country, and these are three really good teams. Seattle, Denver and Fairfield, that's really quality competition for us. The goal was to come out here to compete and get better. I think we really learned a lot, and I think we got better today. We really saw when we play fearlessly and move the ball and not tentatively, good things can happen."
 
Longwood will now have five days to prepare for their return game at home in Willett Hall this Saturday, Dec. 1, against VMI. That will be the first of four December home games for the Lancers, who will also wrap up non-conference play with trips to Duquesne, Cornell and The Citadel before the Big South opener at reigning conference champion Radford on Jan. 5.
 
"The message to our guys right now is that they have five wins in the month of November, they're really competing, and they're relevant," Aldrich said. "They're not a team right now that anybody's looking at saying we don't need to buckle down and play and prepare for. Being able to beat a Richmond and a Fairfield, those are two quality wins that really reflect that this team can really compete and battle with a lot of teams out there."
 
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