OSWEGO, NY — Men’s Basketball dropped a conference game to the Oneonta Red Dragons 76-66 for only their second SUNYAC loss of the season. The Lakers seven game winning streak snapped as the Lakers would allow 43 Red Dragon points in the second half in the defeat. Freshman Jeremiah Sparks once again lead the Lakers with 23 points as he hit seven field goals in his 40 minutes played. Joe Sullivan tallied 19 points and also hit seven field goals along with two 3-pointers.
Oswego falls to 5-2 in conference and hold the 4th spot in the standings as the Lakers look ahead to Potsdam Friday night. The Bears are 6-1 and tied for first in the SUNYAC standings. The Lakers will play right after Women’s Basketball as the Men’s game is set to tip off at 7:30 p.m. in Potsdam.
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SUNYAC Conference Announces New Format for Fall 2020
OSWEGO, NY — On Wednesday, June 17th, the State University of New York Athletic Conference announced changes to the Fall 2020 Season regarding four sports. This change affects women’s tennis, women’s volleyball, and both men’s and women’s soccer, all sports offered by the conference. This decision was made Monday, June 15th, by the SUNYAC Board of Directors during its weekly conference meeting. The Board is made up of one representative from each member school, making up 10 individuals. This announcement has two separate changes that comes a few months before the fall season that will allow division three athletics to continue.
The first switch pertains to women’s tennis moving to the Spring 2021 season, which would align the conference with the current NCAA Division III tournament that already takes place in the spring season. The conference has eight of their ten members in the women’s tennis conference as Buffalo State and Potsdam do not offer the sport. The SUNYAC has been looking to make this change for several years, so the current situation allows the conference to evaluate the potential move. Some conferences have their season in the fall due to weather in the region, making their conference champion play for a NCAA title in the spring season.
For the other three sports, the SUNYAC has decided to split the conference into two different divisions that will compete against each other during the regular season. The divisions are split using Interstate 81 in Central New York, that goes from Oswego to Cortland. The West Division will contain Brockport, Buffalo State, Fredonia, Geneseo, and Oswego while the East Division will consist of Cortland, New Paltz, Oneonta, Plattsburgh, and Potsdam. The change will affect volleyball along with men’s and women’s soccer. Each team would play every opponent in their given division twice with a home and home series. At the end of the season, the top two teams of each division will secure a playoff berth to the SUNYAC playoffs. The same playoff format will be used from years past with all semi final games being played on November 4th, and all finals games being played on November 7th across all three sports. The main reason for this switch was of course to decrease travel time and costs as teams would not need to stay overnight for long road trips. The other benefit is over course the fact that players and team staff will be in contact with less individuals. This move can also be found around many other division III conferences like the NEAC, the conference Morrisville is a part of.
The conference has also stated that the institutions still have the authority to schedule non-conference match ups outside of division play. SUNYAC continued to say that colleges could schedule games against opponents from the other division, with these games not having any affect on the conference standings.
Moving forward, Oswego State Laker fans can expect fall sport’s schedules to be released by the end of July. The Lakers kicked off their season last year around the end of August. Till then, WTOP 10 will continue to update readers on all off season news to keep you up to date on your favorite Oswego State team.
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Oswego State Falls to Cortland in SUNYAC Championship
CORTLAND, N.Y. — In a thrilling three game SUNYAC Baseball Championship Series that featured 11 lead changes between the two teams, the Oswego State Baseball team was defeated by Cortland. Oswego took game one from Cortland in a late comeback fashion, but Cortland won game two in extra innings and game three to take the series. Cortland outscored Oswego 25-23 between the three games, which featured one run wins for each team in games one and two and a two run win for Cortland in the deciding game.
Game one was tied 2-2 after four innings, Kieran Finnegan had some early command issues surrendering four walks which resulted in two runs in the first inning while allowing just one hit in the frame. Finnegan bounced back well, giving up no hits in the next three innings and just one walk. Oswego’s two runs came in the top of the second on a Hunter Holliday RBI double and Julian Drew RBI single. Cortland put up two runs on four hits against Finnegan in the 5th which led to Anthony Van Fossen entering the game for the Lakers. Van Fossen was brilliant out of the bullpen as the junior threw 3.1 hitless innings for the Lakers. SUNYAC RBI leader Kyle Lauria trimmed the deficit to one run with an RBI single in the 7th, and the Lakers kept going with a big two out rally in the 8th. Oswego scored three runs in the 8th as Myles Felton scored on a wild pickoff throw to tie it, Brendon Frank singled in Paul Tammaro, and Ryan Enos followed with an RBI double to score Frank. Mike Di Salvo came in to pitch the 9th but gave up a leadoff home run to make it a one run lead for the Lakers. Di Salvo had the tying run on third base, and the winning run on second with no outs but got back to back flyouts to finish the 7-6 game one Oswego win.
The highest scoring game of the weekend came in an 11-10 extra inning walk off win for Cortland. Game two featured 31 total hits and three home runs for each team, as it was Tammaro, Ryan Weiss, and Felton each hitting long balls for the Lakers. At least one team scored in all ten innings, as Cortland had a four run and multiple three run frames scoring in bunches, but Oswego scored more consistently with one or two runs in seven of the ten innings. Frank and Weiss led Oswego’s offense as both of the seniors contributed four hits apiece. After ten innings and a ton of offense, it was Scott Giordano from Cortland with a walkoff home run forcing a decisive game three the following day.
Oswego and Cortland had identical runs scored in each frame from the 1st to 4th, as the game was tied 5-5 after four innings. Oswego scored one in the top of the 5th but Cortland answered back with two runs of their own in the bottom of the frame that would be the tying and eventual winning run, before tacking on an insurance run in the 6th. Enos was 3-4 with a home run, a double, and 4 RBIs in the final game of the series but it was not enough as Cortland took game three 8-6 to win the SUNYAC Championship.
The season is not over yet for Oswego as the Lakers got an at-large bid into the 48 team NCAA Division III Baseball Championship. There are eight separate locations with six teams at each site; the winning team from each of the eight sites will compete in the Division III World Series in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Oswego was selected to be the second seed at the Hartford, Connecticut Region which is being hosted by Trinity College (Connecticut), a team that Oswego was scheduled to play against earlier this year. The teams in order of seeds 1-6 playing at the Hartford Regional are Southern Maine, Oswego State, Wheaton (Massachusetts), Salve Regina, Husson, Johnson & Wales (Providence). This is Oswego’s sixth consecutive season qualifying for the Championship, and the Lakers are looking for their first World Series appearance since 2018. Games will take place Thursday, May 27th through Sunday, May 30th and Oswego will play their first game at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday.
Image Provided by Alexis Fragapane, Lexi Fragapane Photography
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Oswego State Men’s Lacrosse Defeated by Brockport
OSWEGO, N.Y — Oswego State Men’s Lacrosse continued their 2021 season on Friday against SUNY Brockport. The Golden Eagles defeated the Lakers 9-3 at Laker Turf Stadium in a SUNYAC West match up. Oswego kept it close in the first half due to solid goaltending from netminder Kevin O’Donnell. The senior had 16 saves and posted a .640 save percentage, his best performance in between the pipes this season for the Lakers. Oswego trailed 3-2 heading into the second half before Brockport went on a six goal scoring run before Lucas Cioch tallied his sixth goal of the season. The freshman had two points in the contest to continue his point streak which contains four games with multiple point performances. Ryan DoMont also recorded a goal and assist in the contest. Over the course of the 2021 season, the Oswego offense has only scored 21 goals, the least out of any SUNYAC team.
After the loss, the men’s lacrosse team falls to 0-3 in the SUNYAC West Division and trails Brockport who improves to 2-2 in the conference. The Lakers would need to win out to secure the second spot in the division to make it into the SUNYAC Championship. The Geneseo Knights currently hold second with a 2-1 conference record, the team that will face off against Oswego in the next two matchups. Cortland sits in first with a 3-1 record and will host Oswego to wrap up the regular season. Geneseo will travel to Oswego to play the Lakers on April 22nd at 4 p.m. for another conference contest. WTOP 10 will be at Laker Turf Stadium to cover all the action.
