OSWEGO, N.Y. — The Oswego State men’s hockey team got their first victory on home ice Friday evening against the Cortland Red Dragons. The Lakers took the a 2-1 win to secure first place in the SUNYAC conference. The Red Dragons and Lakers came into the contest both number one in the standings with four points each. Tonight’s contest was Teal Night and Military Appreciation Night in the Deborah F. Stanley Arena to honor the late Mary Gosek and spread awareness for ovarian cancer.
The Lakers would find themselves in a similar situation in the first period after Cortland forward Trevor Veneklase buried one past netminder Steven Kozikoski on the lone power play of the contest. Captain Ethan Homitz would get credit with the assist as Cortland secured the lead eleven minutes and eighteen seconds into the period. Play would be back and forth the remainder of the stanza but Oswego would trail heading into the second period. So far this season, Oswego has been out scored 8-0 in the first twenty minutes of play.
Oswego would have an answer in the second period with a transition goal from Connor Sleeth assisted by captain Travis Broughman. Sleeth recorded his first goal in an Oswego uniform seven minutes and 23 seconds into the stanza. The two teams would trade shots back and fourth for the remainder of the period.
The third period featured Oswego outshooting Cortland fifteen to eight in the third period. Luca Durante would keep the Red Dragons in the contest until Oswego defenseman Troy Robillard grabbed the puck at the right point and shoot through traffic and tucked one in behind Durante with less than ten minutes remaining in regulation. The unassisted goal would be the game winner as the Lakers held on for their second conference win of the 2021-22 season.
The Lakers hold the lead in the SUNYAC with seven points and a conference record of 2-0-1. Brockport and Geneseo are tied in second with six points each. Cortland falls back to fourth with four points and a record of 1-2-0. After tonight’s contest, Oswego sets their sights on the Brockport Golden Eagles as the Lakers head on the road for another conference match up a week from now. Puck drop is set for 7:00 p.m. in Brockport Friday, November 19th. WTOP 10 will continue to inform viewers on the men’s hockey team and their 2021-22 season.
Image Provided by Diana Vitale, WTOP 10 Photography Department
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Oswego High School Girls Bucaneers Hockey: Julia Roman commits to WNE
OSWEGO, NY — Wednesday Morning, June 3rd, the Western New England Women’s Hockey team announced the commitment of Oswego Buccaneer Julia Roman. The Oswego native attended Oswego High School and played on the Oswego High School Girls Hockey team along with the school’s soccer team. The Senior was named Captain this season for the Bucs and led the group to a 9-8 overall record and finished fourth in the season standings. The team would fall to the Section III Champions, the Clinton Warriors, in the semifinals of Sectionals. Roman, a right handed shot, would tally 7 points (2 goals & 5 assists) over the course of her senior season and led defenseman in points along side freshman Mia Fierro. The defenseman recorded 17 points over the past three seasons in a Buccaneers uniform.
Western New England University is located just outside Springfield, Massachusetts, and is a part of the Commonwealth Coast Conference, who will now recognize Women’s Hockey with a conference championship. The Golden Bear announced last June that the college would start a Women’s Hockey team at the start of the 2020-21 season. The Division III program would join the new conference along with Suffolk University. A majority of this conference is made up of members of the CHC, the Colonial Hockey Conference. The CHC will has recently disbanded after the creation of the newer conference. This conference winner will get an automatic bid to the Division III Women’s Hockey Championship. The Oswego State Lakers have yet to play a CHC opponent in program history, so the return of Julia Roman to Oswego to play against the green and gold is unlikely. WTOP 10 will continue to deliver updates on both the Oswego High School Buccaneers and the Oswego High School Girls Buccaneers Hockey teams next season as both teams currently prepare for the 2020-21 season.
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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.
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Oswego womens lacrosse wins big this weekend
It was a well earned win for the Lakers Saturday afternoon as they skated past the Potsdam Bears with a 19-10 victory. The Lakers had a comfortable lead the whole game as they were already up by four goals at the end of the first quarter. The Lakers kept their foot on the gas in the second with relentless offensive play. At the half the Lakers had a 10-2 lead and this game was pretty much sealed. Sophomore Isabella Lembo was on an absolute tear scoring a whopping eight goals in her incredible performance. She was on fire the whole contest and lead the charge. Sophomore Shae McConnell also had a great performance with five goals in this contest. Despite an attempted comeback from Potsdam in the fourth the game was already sealed. The Lakers are on the road Wednesday as the take on Brockport at 4 p.m.!
