{"id":158586,"date":"2026-02-01T01:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T01:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/158586\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T01:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T01:04:09","slug":"bender-majstorovic-led-rally-comes-up-just-short-against-hawaii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/158586\/","title":{"rendered":"Bender, Majstorovic Led Rally Comes Up Just Short Against Hawai\u2019i"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2013 Long Beach State cut a 15-point lead for Hawai&#8217;i down to one point in the final minute, but couldn&#8217;t quite finish the charge as the Rainbow Warriors held on for an 89-82 victory in Long Beach.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/petar-majstorovic\/9439\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9439\" target=\"_blank\">Petar Majstorovic<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/shaquil-bender\/9429\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9429\" target=\"_blank\">Shaquil Bender<\/a> carried the scoring load for Long Beach State (8-15, 4-7 Big West), both finishing with 22 points, while the rest of the squad chipped in, with three players finishing with nine points.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe Beach got off to a strong start, finding Bender for a pair of early threes that helped the Beach open up an 18-11 lead in the first seven minutes. Hawai&#8217;i (16-5, 8-3) was able to chip away at the lead, first evening the score at 24-24 before ultimately taking a five-point lead into halftime at 36-31.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nAt the start of the second half, Hawai&#8217;i was able to get Isaac Finlinson loose to open up the contest. Finlinson was 4-for-5 from three, and he made all four in the first seven minutes of the half to help the Rainbow Warriors take a 56-42 lead.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe Beach were able to slow down the Hawai&#8217;i attack and then chipped away on their own in the closing minutes. Down 15 with eight minutes remaining, Long Beach State cut the lead to 10 at 70-60 and then used a 6-0 run to force an Eran Ganot timeout at 73-67 with 5:19 to play.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nWith just over a minute to play, <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/leopold-levillain\/9436\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9436\" target=\"_blank\">Leopold Levillain<\/a> was fouled and hit two free throws, and on the next trip down Majstorovic made a pair from the stripe to cut the lead to one with 54 seconds remaining. Dre Bullock made a big shot for the Rainbow Warriors, slowing the momentum with two of his game-high 26 points. The Beach still had a chance to tie with the final possession down 85-82, but a turnover forced Long Beach State to foul Hawai&#8217;i, who closed out the win.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nLevillain finished with a team-high 10 rebounds, while nine points from <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/shay-johnson-jr-\/9434\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9434\" target=\"_blank\">Shay Johnson Jr.<\/a> was a career high. <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/isaiah-lewis\/9438\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9438\" target=\"_blank\">Isaiah Lewis<\/a> finished with six assists while also adding nine points.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nLong Beach State will have just one game next week, facing UC San Diego on the road at 7 p.m. on Thursday, February 5.<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2013 Long Beach State cut a 15-point lead for Hawai&#8217;i down to one point in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-158586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-long-beach","9":"tag-long-beach-headlines","10":"tag-long-beach-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}