OSWEGO, N.Y. — The Oswego Men’s Lacrosse team is set to play their final game of the 2021 season as they take on the Cortland Red Dragons on Friday, April 30th. This is the second matchup between the two teams this year, with the previous game ending in a 16-7 Cortland victory on April 9th. The 4 p.m. match up will take place in Cortland as the Red Dragons look to take the number one seed in the SUNYAC West.
Oswego is going into Friday’s contest on a 6-game losing streak including a 20-6 loss to the Geneseo Knights last week. In fact, the Lakers haven’t won a game since March 7th of 2020, their second-to-last game before the season was cancelled. The Red Dragons, however, have been dominant all season and are currently on a 5-game win streak. The Lakers need to generate enough offense to keep pace with Cortland’s explosive duo of Dante Yacavone and Zak Jones, who have 67 combined points this season. Oswego will be lead by junior attackman, Weston Gray, who leads the team in goals. The Lakers have also gotten solid production out of freshman midfielder, Lucas Cioch, who leads the team in assists and total points.
Unfortunately, history isn’t on the Lakers’ side in this matchup. The Oswego Men’s Lacrosse team is 0-37 versus Cortland all-time and will have to get their first ever win against the Red Dragons in order to avoid a winless season. Faceoff is set for 4:00 p.m. at Cortland.
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Winter sports pushed back as NYSPHSAA holds meetings
OSWEGO, NY — This past Sunday, the New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA) COVID-19 task force met once again to create a plan for the return of fall interscholastic athletics. The group has been reading over documents from the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) which has guidance and recommendations on this ever-changing situation, created by the COVID-19 pandemic. This group has met five times so far and plans to release a comprehensive document containing information for schools across the state, which will be released this Friday, September 4th.
The newest news to come from the NYSPHSAA is the change to push the start date of the winter sports season from November 16th to November 30th. The association did this to allot time to schools and sections to complete this condensed fall athletic season. Currently, only low risk to moderate risk fall sports will be allowed to compete against other schools in their section. Football and Volleyball will be allowed to practice but cannot play due to the sports being categorized as both high risk sports. WTOP 10 will continue to update readers on the developing story as teams can begin practices on September 21st.
NYSPHSAA Press Release: http://www.nysphsaa.org/News-Media/Headline-News/Article/id/8643
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Oswego State men’s basketball take three wins on the road
OSWEGO N.Y. — The Lakers took a full week of games head on, winning all three games they played including two huge scoring outputs. The first game of the week came on Tuesday against the Buffalo State Bengals in Buffalo, the final score a whopping 109-72, the first of two times they would score 109 this week. The game started close, 11-10 after five minutes with Devin Green connecting from deep twice. Oswego would take off from there, a 19-5 scoring run with six points from Ahkee Anderson and ten from Christian Simmons saw the lead grow to 30-15. The Lakers would score 24 more over the next ten minutes, and would go into the half with a commanding 52-32 lead. Oswego was an excellent 54.3% from the field in the first half, and 47% from beyond the arc. The second half was just more Oswego domination, the lead wouldn’t fall below twenty, and was up to forty with a minute to go. A few garbage time points from the Bengals saw a final score of 109-72. The Lakers were led by twenty-two from Simmons, who added eight rebounds. Green added seventeen to the score line, 5-10 from three on the night. Anderson and Jamal Achille had fourteen and twelve respectively. Four other lakers would have more than eight points.
Game two of the week came on the road against the Potsdam Bears. A tighter contest on the scoreboard saw Oswego win 76-58. The Lakers would find themselves down one after ten minutes. Devin Green helped keep it close with a pair of threes early. A Jeremiah Sparks lay-up would cap off a 12-2 Lakers run that would take the lead for Lakers, 29-20. The Lakers and Bears would go back and forth the remainder of the half and would go into the locker rooms with Oswego up 40-29. The Lakers capitalized on turnovers scoring twelve of their points on seven Potsdam turnovers. The Bears didn’t let the lead grow too much to start the second half, the score was 51-36 after the first five minutes. Ahkee Anderson would assist on back to back baskets and the lead would grow to nineteen. With seven minutes remaining in the game, the Bears had cut the lead to only seven. Successful threes and good defense helped the Bears get back into the game. Julien Crittendon would hit a three to extend the lead back to ten and take momentum back from Potsdam. The Lakers would use the momentum to close the game out for the final score of 76-58. Crittendon would lead the team in points with seventeen. Jamal Achille had sixteen on the night while sharing the rebound lead with Sparks at nine. Sparks would add twelve of his own.
The final game of the week was against the Plattsburgh Cardinals in Plattsburgh. It was domination again for the Lakers as they won 109-70. Plattsburgh took four of the first six points before the Lakers took the reigns of the game. Eighteen straight points over four and half minutes saw the Lakers take the lead that would last the rest of the game. The Lakers had over half their points in the first half, going into the locker rooms up 62-31. The Lakers utilized their bench during the half, with 38 of their points being from the bench. The defense was also on the point forcing sixteen turnovers. The Lakers extended their lead to 45 over the first eight minutes of the second half. Both teams would go back and forth through the rest of the game and get to the final of 109-72. Five Lakers would hit the double digit scoring mark, freshman Marcus Shelton leading the team with fourteen off the bench. Christian Simmons added thirteen points and seven rebounds, with Devin Green, Jeremiah Sparks, and Kaleb Cook all with ten. Ahkee Anderson and Brendon Mulson added nine each. 66 of the Lakers points came from the bench. The team shot 53.8% from the field, while also an excellent 16-20 from the free throw line.
Oswego’s winning streak now sits at ten games and they have a record of 13-1 (7-0 SUNYAC). Coming into the week they sat just two spots out of the top 25 with 28 points, number 25, Emory, has 40 points. Their next game is against the Geneseo Knights in Oswego on Tuesday, January 18. Geneseo is second in the SUNYAC also undefeated in conference play at 6-0 and are 8-4 on the year.
IMAGE PROVIDED BY OSWEGO ATHLETICS DEPARTMENT
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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.!
