OSWEGO — This past Saturday, Men’s Soccer looked to continue their SUNYAC play against Brockport, a team receiving votes in the latest D3soccer.com national poll. The Lakers won off a Caleb Asamoah penalty kick during the second half to push the team past the Golden Eagles with a 1-0 finish. This victory allows Oswego to start conference play 2-0 for the first time in over a decade. The team looks to continue their strong play into next weekend, when the Lakers host SUNY Cortland on Saturday October 5th at 1 p.m.
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Men’s Hockey Releases Leadership for 2020-21 Season
OSWEGO, NY — On Thursday, May 14th, the Men’s Hockey team released their captains for the 2020-21 season. Three seniors were given letters to be the leadership group for next season. Defenseman Carter Allen will captain the group heading into the next season, along with Max Novick and Tanner Spink received A’s on their jerseys. The group will lead a new younger generation of Lakers into next season as a large group of underclassmen will join the team via recruitment. Here is some more insight into the players leading the Lakers.
Carter Allen was an assistant captain last season under former captain Josh Zizek. The defenseman has been with the team since his freshman year. Through three seasons, the Ontario native has played in 81 games for the Lakers, in which all his seasons featured being positive in the plus/minus rating. Allen has 22 points (4 goals & 18 assists) in those three seasons, with 9 points coming this past season. #2 tallied two multi point games his junior year with two assists against Morrisville State and Cortland. Allen also got one assist in the SUNYAC finals against Geneseo. Allen will become the captain in the 56th season of Lakers hockey.
Max Novick will be supporting Allen as an assistant captain next season. The defenseman was named to the Third All-American team for the East region this past season after tallying 24 points (6 goals & 18 assists) in 26 games played. The Ontario native’s season was highlighted by two three point performances against Cortland and Potsdam. Novick has played in 79 games over the course of three season for the Lakers in which the player has recorded a total of 56 points (14 goals & 42 assists). Novick’s collegiate career is also highlighted by three plus seasons after going +20 his junior year.
Tanner Spink will also be an assistant captain his senior year as the forward will join the leadership group next season. This past season, Spink recorded 13 points (3 goals and 10 assists) in 25 games played. The Ontario native ranked 2nd in SUNYAC conference players who have scored short handed goals as Spink recorded two this past season. In his past three seasons with the Lakers, the forward has played in 74 games and has tallied 41 points (14 goals and 27 assists) over the course of his career.
WTOP 10 will continue to give Oswego fan’s coverage of all Oswego sports into the summer before the return of fall sports. Schedules for most Laker teams will be released in the next two months.
Graphic provided by Laker’s Hockey on Twitter. Made by Lexi Fragapane
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Baseball takes series against rivals Plattsburgh
Oswego, N.Y. – The Oswego State Lakers found themselves in a weekend set against school rivals the Plattsburgh Cardinals. The Lakers came into the series on a six game SUNYAC win streak, though were on a three game losing streak after taking back-to-back losses to St. John Fisher the previous Saturday and a mid-week loss to Ithaca. Plattsburgh came in on a four game win streak, including a sweep of the New Paltz Hawks.
Game one of the three game set was on Friday, and saw Kieran Finnegan on the bump for the Lakers taking on Kolby Mordecki for the Cardinals. Oswego took the lead scoring the first run in the bottom of the second on a Jelani Hamer steal of home. Connor Gonzalski grabbed the lead in the top of the third on a two run homer. Owen Parliment tied it straight back up with a solo shot in the bottom of the third. Once again Plattsburgh wasn’t letting Oswego keep the lead, Jack Defayette singling and scoring Adam Wein to give a 3-2 lead. After a couple of scoreless frames, the the Lakers finally grabbed the lead back, Jacob Levine hitting a two-run homer for a 4-3 Oswego lead. The game ended with that score line. Kieran Finnegan pitched seven strong innings, giving up the three runs, striking out 10, and walking two. Anthony Van Fossen pitched the final two innings without allowing a runs, striking out three and grabbing a save. Kolby Mordecki also pitched seven, gave up all four runs, struck out 11, and walked three.
Game two was moved to Saturday morning, due to predicted weather later on Saturday. Chris Santis took the mound for Plattsburgh, taking on Alek Conrad for Oswego. Oswego took an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first, as Jelani Hamer stole third and then scored on a throwing error by the catcher. In the top of the third, Plattsburgh tied it on a Connor Gonzalski single. The game finally came untied in the sixth. It started with a Jack Defayette two-run double. Two batters later, Adam Wein doubled scoring Defayette, Plattsburgh took a 4-1 lead. The extended their lead to four runs in the eighth on a Nick Cergol RBI single. The Lakers tried to mount a comeback in the bottom of the ninth. With two runners on, Tishawn Featherstone singled scoring both. That brought up the Lakers most dangerous hitter Owen Parliment, who struck out looking to end the game. Chris Santic went 7.2 innings, allowing only one run walking two and striking out five. Adam Veit, who played the first eight innings at shortstop, came in for the ninth, and got the save. For Oswego Alek Conrad went five innings, gave up one run, without giving a walk and striking out three. Larry Citrola was the first out of the bullpen for Oswego, and he gave up three runs, in two-thirds of an inning and got the loss.
Game three of the series was game two of Saturday’s double header. Adam Veit got the start for Plattsburgh after pitching the ninth of the previous game, for Oswego it was freshman Jonah Shearer. This game was a lot different than the other two had been. It started with a five run second inning for Oswego. It started with a Tim Schinto RBI single. Then CJ McCarthy hit a triple that scored two more runs, and then on a throwing error, made it home clearing the bases and giving Oswego a 4-0 lead. A couple batters later, Tishawn Featherstone hit a single, that would score Jelani Hammer. Plattsburgh grabbed a run in the third and fourth innings, making it 5-2. In the bottom of the fourth Oswego put up another three runs to extend it to 8-2. RBIs by McCarthy, Hamer, and Featherstone. After the top of the sixth, a lightning warning put the game into a 30 min delay, and then the weather finally hit and the game was called, Oswego winning 8-2. Jonah Shearer had an excellent start for the Lakers, pitching 5.1 innings, allowing two runs, neither of them earned, walking one, and striking out five. Adam Veit was charged with all eight of Oswego’s runs, six of them were earned. He only struck out one batter and walked one.
The Lakers now head to a home double header against Clarkson on Tuesday with record of 15-15 (8-4 SUNYAC). They are fourth in the SUNYAC.
IMAGE PROVIDED BY ERIN BLANK, WTOP10 PHOTOGRAPHY DEPARTMENT
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Where There’s Sparks, There’s Fire
Bethlehem, PA – The Lakers sailed down to Moravian College for the 40th Steel Club Classic picking up two wins on the perfect weekend. Their first matchup was against Montclair State who had scored over a hundred points in multiple games this season but couldn’t produce against the reigning SUNYAC championship defense of the Oswego Lakers. The Redhawks scored 73 points good enough for a season-low in their first 11 games this year, but it wasn’t a cakewalk win for the Lakers.
Montclair State ran a baseline to baseline trap on Oswego from the opening tip until the horn sounded at the end of the game. Senior Brandon Gartland shot 5 for 6 from beyond the arc exploiting no-easy-inside-bucket Redhawk defense. Junior Liam Sanborn finished the game with 22 points and helped control the pace of the game when Montclair began to chip away at the lead in the second half. Coach Leone expressed that Liam is “the guy who runs the show for us” and as good as he was on Saturday, it was a different story come Sunday.
Sanborn got into foul trouble early in the game against the Moravian College Greyhounds and didn’t see the floor much in the first half. Ending the game with 6 total points, Sanborn wasn’t the normal floor general for the Lakers. Freshman Jeremiah Sparks was the ‘spark horse’ on Sunday scoring 32 points bringing his total up to 50 on the weekend. Sparks plugged the hole in his offensive game after having five turnovers on Saturday against the Redhawks and Coach Leone was pleased with his performance.
“[Jeremiah] has obviously got some g-d given ability with his athleticism,” Coach Leone praised, “tonight might have been Jeremiah’s best game in terms of moving the ball when he was double-teamed.”
Sparks was also a presence on the defensive end tonight registering two steals and three monster blocks against the Hounds–the only three blocks of the game for Oswego. Freshman Kaleb Cook was in the backcourt with Sparks and he came up with a couple of clutch buckets and rebounds down the stretch. This turned out to be another point of emphasis for Leone regarding his comfort levels with the depth on his team.
“We finished the game with two freshman guards out there,” Leone said “so that’s pretty good for the future of our program. It was a great thing for them to be able to go through that experience especially during a win.”
Although, this win may have been a loss if it wasn’t for Joe Sullivan’s ability to flip the switch in the second half. Sullivan was non-existent in the first half ending without a bucket but through all of the adversity Oswego played against being in Moravian’s backyard, he finished with 22 second-half points.
“We challenged a couple of guys at halftime.” Leone expressed, “Like a senior should, [Sullivan] stepped up his game and played a great second half. We wouldn’t have won without him.”
Joe Sullivan finished with five boards to add to his second-half outburst and went 10 for 11 from the charity stripe. Funny enough, his missed free throw would be the ONLY missed free throw on the night for the Lakers. Oswego made 37 free throws on 38 attempts which helped seal the deal late in the game. Coach Leone was satisfied by their efforts at the line tonight.
“That was the thing I was most happy about.” Leone said, “I don’t know if we made that one we missed if it would be some kind of record for us. 37 out of 38 is pretty impressive and our guys deserve a lot of credit on that.”
Sullivan and Gartland combined for 21 of 22 at the free-throw line on Sunday night as the Lakers outran the Greyhounds winning by a score of 85 to 79 and improve to 7-2 on the year. The Lakers will play their home opener this Friday against Fredonia at 7:30 p.m. in Max Zeil Gymnasium, and look for Jeremiah Sparks to continue to produce as he grows into a future SUNYAC star.
