Box Score FARMVILLE, Va. – Rashid Gaston powered his way to a double-double, and the Spartans' 3-point shooting helped propel the Norfolk State men's basketball team to a 78-66 win over Longwood Thursday night at Willett Hall.

Gaston tallied 14 points and 11 boards off the bench in just his third career game, scoring four of his baskets after grabbing an offensive board. The Spartans, meanwhile, hit 7-of-12 from the 3-point line, including a 6-of-7 effort in the first half, to improve to 2-1 on the year. The Lancers fell to 0-2 in their home opener in front of a packed house.

Junior #Zieyik Estimè# hit four of those 3-pointers, including three in the last four minutes of the first half to give the Spartans a 14-point lead at the break. Estimè finished with 12 points on the night.

The Spartans went up by as much as 17 in the second half and then had to overcome a late Longwood rally. NSU also had to get past a 17-point, 15-rebound, four-block effort from Michael Kessens. The Lancers got all but eight of their points from their starting five. NSU had a 37-8 edge in bench points.

NSU also hit 21-of-32 from the charity stripe, including 18-of-26 in the second half, compared to just 8-of-12 for Longwood.

The Lancers had the white-out crowd on its feet early on after scoring the first five points of the game. NSU immediately countered with a 15-2 run over the next five and a half minutes thanks to its pressure defense up court. The Lancers were able to cut the lead down to two, 17-15, after an 8-2 run, but junior Malcolm Hawkins and Gaston converted several baskets to get the Spartan advantage to seven, 23-16, at the 8:13 mark.

Hawkins, though, left with his third foul at the 7:47 mark, including his second on the offensive end, and had to sit the rest of the half with 10 points. The offense kept clicking, though, as senior Kris Brown's floater in the lane made it 25-21, and junior Pendarvis Williams hit a deep trey from the left wing over his defender for a 28-22 advantage with 4:54 to go in the half.

NSU went back to its zone defense and kept the Lancers off the scoreboard for more than three minutes. That Williams trey started a 10-0 run that was capped when Gaston backed his defender down low in the post and converted the short layup. After Longwood's Mark Parker drained a trey to end the Spartan run, Estimè added a pair of back-breaking 3-pointers with less than two minutes left to give NSU a 43-29 lead at the break.

Hawkins finished with 10 points and four steals on the night. Williams also reached double figures with 11.

Junior Brandon Goode added his first four points of the game in the first minute of the second half as NSU took a 16-point lead. Longwood cut the lead to single digits on Tristan Carey's drive to the basket with 13:33 left to cap an 8-2 run. Another trey from Estimè got the lead back into double digits, and Gaston finished a 9-0 run by completing a traditional 3-point play and putting back an offensive board less than 40 seconds later to make it 61-44 with 10:31 to go.

Up 63-46, NSU failed to convert from the floor for the next five and a half minutes, though, and Longwood used a 13-4 run during that time to cut the Spartan lead to eight, 67-59, at 4:29 mark. Gaston's tip-in with a little less than four minutes to go finally ended that drought, and the Spartans held Longwood to just two points in nearly three and a half minutes to seal the Lancers' fate.

Longwood hit 40.9 percent for the game, but converted on just 4-of-21 3-pointers (19.0 percent). Carey added 13 points, seven boards and five assists.

NSU had a 21-10 advantage in second-chance points.

NSU will turn right around and head up to the second part of the 2012 Hall of Fame Tip-Off Tournament at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn. The Spartans will face Loyola (Md.) at noon on Saturday and then either Albany or UMKC on Sunday.