OSWEGO, NY. – The Oswego State Men’s Basketball team returned home for their first SUNYAC matchup of the season on Tuesday evening .The Lakers opened up their conference play against the Fredonia Blue Devils. The Lakers got off to a hot start offensively, hitting 3 of their first 5 three point shots. After the first ten minutes of play, the Lakers were 7/10 from the three point line and played great defensively holding Fredonia to only 17% from the field. Oswego would take a lead by 27 before the Blue Devils started to make their own run to cut their lead back down to 21. At half,Oswego would have a 46-25 lead in help from a combination of great defense and even better offense. The Lakers shot 50% from behind the arc and overall 47.4% from the fieldOswego was able to win on the glass in the half, out rebounding the Blue Devils with a 22-16 margin. The Lakers played great team basketball as they spread the ball around, resulting in ten different players recording at least one field goal in the half.
Jeremiah Sparks started the second half with a flash when he started with a steal and a dunk in transition. The very next play Sparks stole the ball again and got another two points on the fastbreak just seconds later. The Blue Devils played better offensively in second half, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the deficit handed to them by the Lakers. A dunk in transition by Cartier Bowman with 7 minutes left was the exclamation point stopping the Fredonia run and Oswego was able to hit several three-point attempts late in the second half to close out the 79-60 victory.
Cartier Bowman had a great game recording a double-double with 22 points, 12 rebounds, and two blocks. The Lakers ended the game 4-1 and 1-0 in the SUNYAC.
The Lakers returned back to the Max Ziel on Friday in a tough SUNYAC matchup against the Brockport Golden Eagles. The game started with a low scoring affair as no team could get the momentum going. Oswego trailed Brockport 13-7 just over 10 minutes into the contest, but went on a 10-0 run to take a 17-13 lead with five minutes remaining in the first half. The Golden Eagles went on a little run of their own the last 5 minutes and the Lakers now trailed 28-25 at half.
The second half started with both teams swapping the lead back and forth. Oswego started knocking down half of their shots going 50% from the field. Brockport then came back with a a sixpoint lead with only six minutes left and coming out of a Laker timeout Jamal Achille hit a layup helping the struggling offensive lakers cut the deficit to four. That layup with be the last score for either team until about 90 seconds remaining in the game when Brockport kept growing their lead. On the Oswego side Devin Green ended the game with 11 points. The Lakers struggled all game shooting 25.7% from the field, and 18.5% from three point range. The Lakers did have more offensive rebounds recording 16 to Brockport’s 10.
The Lakers move to 4-2(1-1) overall and have their first lost in the SUNYAC with a record of 1-1.The men now travel to Buffalo to face the Buffalo State Bengals on December 3, and look to get back in the win column against a team that has lost two games in a row.
IMAGE PROVIDED BY OSWEGO ATHLETICS