OSWEGO — The Oswego State Women’s Tennis Team finishes the season with a victory over the Utica Pioneers by a score of (9-0). The Lakers finish the season with a (4-7) record. Bridget Bender, Samantha Spence, and Hoya Kobayashi all blanked their opponents in singles matches for the Lakers. Oswego will return in the spring for its non-traditional season.
-
Oswego State men’s hockey snags win in dominating fashion
OSWEGO, N.Y. — The Oswego State men’s hockey team continued their win streak on Friday night against the Buffalo State Bengals. The Lakers extended their win streak to two after a dominating 5-0 win on home ice. Oswego State is now with 10-4-1 after the SUNYAC victory and improves to 4-3-0 in the Deborah F. Stanley Arena. The Lakers also move up the conference standings posting sixteen points and slotting in at third place behind Geneseo and Cortland.
Oswego State got off to a hot start when defenseman Ryan Bunka walked in from the point to put the first Oswego State goal in the back of the net. The Lakers were just two minutes into the contest and the tally was assisted by captain Travis Broughman and forward Connor Sleeth. That would be the lone goal of the period before a hot second period that featured Oswego State netting three more goals. Tristan Francis secured his first career goal as an Oswego State Laker after a pass from Broughman. Eight seconds later, Jackson Arcan was fed a pass from Ryan Dickinson off the faceoff and buried the third goal of the contest. Francis would get the secondary assist and finish the contest with a goal and assist. The final goal of the period came from Shane Bull on the rush as the sophomore popped the bottle and got his second goal of the season. Alternate captain Josh LeBlanc and Conor Smart would get credited with the assists. In the third stanza, the Lakers would put the cherry on top with a tally from Quinn Warmuth. The defenseman secured his second goal of the 2021-22 season. Broughman and Sleeth would get the assists and the captain would finish with three assists to end the conference matchup. In between the pipes, Lakers netminder Steven Kozikoski would get the win after staying perfect and making thirty-five saves. His season stats improve to a 1.73 goals against average and a .939 save percentage after starting in net for ten total contests.
Oswego State now looks ahead to whiteout weekend as the Lakers welcome SUNY Potsdam and Plattsburgh State for two SUNYAC contests. The Lakers finish their homestand this weekend as Potsdam faces off against Oswego State Friday night at 7:00 p.m. in the Deborah F. Stanley Arena. On Saturday, the rivalry game is set for a 7:00 p.m. puck drop as the Cardinals of Plattsburgh State travel to Oswego. WTOP 10 will be live Friday night at 6:30 p.m. and then at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday for a special hour long pre-game show from the Perch inside the Marano Campus Center. WTOP 10 will continue to provide coverage of the Oswego State men’s hockey team and the group heads into the second half of their 2021-22 season.
Image Provided By William Rogers, WTOP 10 Photography Department
-
SUNYAC cancels Fall 2020 Season
OSWEGO, NY — After many athletic conferences across the United States begin to cancel or postpone the Fall 2020 season due to COVID-19, the SUNYAC Conference announced on Monday, July 20th, the cancellation of the fall season for member institutions. This decision was made by the SUNYAC Presidents in conjunction with the SUNYAC Board of Directors. This comes after the Empire 8, a local New York Division III conference, announced the postponement of the Fall 2020 season on July 16th. The SUNYAC has decided to cancel all competition till January 2021, which includes winter sports. The report, found on the conference website, states that teams can continue small team workouts when school is back in session. There are still questions regarding the winter sports season that has been pushed off, but time will tell what changes will be made moving forward.
Of course, this will affect Oswego State Athletics for the time being, as most of the teams are a part of that conference. WTOP 10 will continue to have updates on the situation as students return to college around the end of August.
-
Men’s Hockey Season Recap after SUNYAC run
GENESEO, NY — The Men’s Hockey team will head to Geneseo this weekend to battle for the SUNYAC Championship. The 16-9-1 Lakers have had an up and down season up to this point, as the group now is on a five-game winning streak fresh of a victory over rivals Plattsburgh. Oswego’s season started back on October 19th with an exhibition game against Carleton Place, then against Nazareth, both wins for the Lakers. The group would head into the regular season and secure four conference wins in a homestand at the Marano Campus Center that would give them first place in the SUNYAC standings.
One turning point in the season came from a road trip to Geneseo, to face a nationally ranked team in the same barn that Oswego lost the SUNYAC Championship in last season. The Lakers would fall apart and lose 9-1 as multiple Lakers would be tossed from the game and miss their next matchup against Hobart. This game would be the start of a three-game losing streak against nationally ranked teams, Hobart and Salve Regina in the Utica Thanksgiving Tournament. Oswego would turn it around on that Saturday in Utica against Plymouth State to give the Lakers hope as the team continued into the last week of the first half of the season. The Lakers would head on the road and swept the Buffalo teams in the conference to finish 7-3 in the first semester.
Oswego would come back from Christmas Break to play in the annual Pathfinder Bank/Oswego State Classic in which the team would first face off against Saint Mary’s. The defending champs would fall to the mid-west team 1-0 and face UNE the following day and also lose 4-3 to start the new year off on the wrong foot. This losing streak would continue against two more nationally ranked teams in the month of January as Utica and Elmira defeated the Lakers in the Marano Campus Center. The Lakers would not defeat any nationally ranked team this season as the group would go 0-6 against those teams, one of the biggest eyesores of the 2019-2020 season.
After losing to Cortland in overtime, Steven Kozikoski, the sophomore netminder that has not played in a regular season game for the Lakers, got his shot in between the pipes as both senior goalies David Richer and Cedric Hansen were not playing their best games. Kozikoski’s first start was against Canton, a team Oswego has figured out the past few seasons. The Lakers took a commanding win in the Marano Campus Center as the group defeated Canton 8-2 and was one of the turning points that occurred in the second half of the season. The new netminder would go 5-1-1 in net and win his first playoff game for the Lakers this past Tuesday.
The group secured the second seed in the standings with their success in the second semester and faced Plattsburgh on home ice. The team would defeat their rivals 4-1 and move on to Geneseo. The Lakers season once again would end in Geneseo as the Ice Knights defeated Oswego 4-1 in the SUNYAC finals. This would be the second time Oswego would not be able to get it done in the finals while being held at Geneseo. The Lakers would finish 16-10-1 to end the season as the group looks to rebuild as 13 seniors will move on from the program. Moving forward, Oswego looks to rebuild around players like Alex DiCarlo, Travis Broughman, and Steven Kozikoski heading into these next few years as these three players are all underclassmen.
