BOILING SPRINGS, N.C. – Gardner-Webb may have saddled Longwood with a letdown of an ending to the regular season, but the final chapter to Longwood's historic 2018-19 has yet to be written.
 
Playing in the finale of a breakthrough regular season under first-year head coach Griff Aldrich, Longwood (15-16, 5-11 Big South) struggled to overcome a 21-point effort from D.J. Laster and fell 66-47 Saturday afternoon at Paul Porter Arena.
 
The win completed a perfect 13-0 home record for the Runnin' Bulldogs, who also got 18 points from David Efianayi and a 10-point, 11-rebound double-double from freshman Jose Perez. The win spoiled the Lancers' latest bid to add yet another victory to a season that has seen them record the second-most victories of the program's 15-year Division I era.
 
Now Longwood, locked in as the No. 9 seed in the Big South Championship, will begin its quest for a Big South title, doing so as an underdog whose first-round matchup will be against newfound Big South rival Hampton this Tuesday, March 4, in Hampton, Va., at 6 p.m.  That matchup will kick off Longwood's first postseason under Aldrich, who concludes his inaugural Big South slate leading Longwood to eight more wins than the Lancers had last year for the most of any first-year head coach in Division I basketball this season.
 
However Gardner-Webb, playing to secure a top-four seed and a first-round bye in the Big South postseason, disrupted that upward trajectory Saturday afternoon with a 15-1 run over the final five minutes of the first half. That run flipped a two-point Longwood lead into a 33-21 Gardner-Webb advantage at halftime, and the Bulldogs led by no fewer than seven points the rest of the way.
 
"We had different spurts," Aldrich said. "The first 11 minutes of the game, I thought we were really on point. Then Laster just had his way there the last 10 minutes of the first half. I think he had 17 points in the first half, 21 for the game. He just absolutely dominated us in the post.
 
"You're not going to win if a guy's catching it for uncontested layups, which is what happened. There was a breakdown on our end in ball pressure, there was a breakdown in our competitiveness to not let him easily catch the ball, and we weren't where we needed to be help-side."
 
The 6-6, 230-pound Laster went 8-of-11 from the floor and neared a double-double with eight rebounds in his team-high 35 minutes of action. He missed just one of his eight shots in the first half and sparked the Runnin' Bulldogs' end-of-half rally with a go-ahead three-pointer with 4:52 to play. That trey put Gardner-Webb ahead 23-20 and was part of nine unanswered points during the run.
 
Longwood played catch-up the rest of the way and eventually cut the lead back to single digits at 44-37 with 12:25 to play. Jordan Cintron had six points during an 8-2 run that trimmed that deficit, but Gardner-Webb countered with an 11-1 run that extended the lead back to 17.
 
"The second half we went on a nice run where we were getting a bunch of stops," Aldrich said. "Honestly I thought we did a decent job defensively, for the most part, when were locked in. But there were still too many lapses that occurred. We started to put a run together and we cut it to seven, we were playing really good defense right there. But sadly I thought that run, we ended it.
 
"We turned the ball over in bunches there with eight turnovers in the second half, and they were really at inopportune times. Quite a few were right there when we were making a run. That's the level of execution and urgency that I think we have to elevate."
 
The bulk of Longwood's scoring came from Cintron and Wilson, who combined for 30 points and 10 of Longwood's 15 made field goals. Wilson, continuing his late-season breakout, led Longwood with 16 points over a career-high 34 minutes. Cintron added 14 points and three steals off the bench.
 
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