OSWEGO, N.Y. — Despite a great showing on Laker Turf Arena, the Lakers women’s lacrosse team couldn’t get the job done in their game against the Golden Flyers of Nazareth. The Golden Flyers were off to a wild star scoring the first three goals of the game. With three minutes left in the first, sophomore Julia Quirk and junior Sela Wiley both found success to narrow it down to a one goal deficit. The second quarter was back and forth action ultimately ending with the Golden Flyers taking a 6-5 lead at the half. It was a rough third quarter for the Lakers as the Golden Flyers scored six unanswered goals to bring the lead up to seven. The Lakers were not giving up just yet as they were able to score five more goals in a comeback attempt, ultimately losing by just four. The lead scorers for the Lakers were sophomore Julia Quirk with four goals and Junior Sela Wiley with three. The Lakers look to bounce back from this loss when they head to Lake Ontario Thursday to take on the Fredonia Blue Devils in a SUNYAC matchup. Game starts at 1:00!
Image Provided by Oswego State Athletics
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Men’s Hockey starts SUNYAC play against Cortland
OSWEGO — Regular season hockey returns to Suny Oswego as the Men’s hockey team will take the home ice in their season opener against Suny Cortland tomorrow night at 7 p.m. The Lakers come in off of two impressive victories in exhibitions against Nazareth college and the Carleton Place Canadiens. The Lakers will look for contributions from Sophomore Tanner Spink who had a combined 3 goals in the 2 exhibitions and from Junior Mitch Emerson who had 2 goals in the exhibitions himself.
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Michael Gillespie signs first professional contract
OSWEGO, NY — On Wednesday morning, Senior Michael Gillespie of the Men’s Hockey team signed a professional contract with the Worcester Railers of the ECHL, the East Coast Hockey League. The Railers are affiliated with the New York Islanders and are located in Worcester, Massachusetts. Michael Gillespie tallied 24 points (6 goals and 18 assists) in 25 games played during his senior season with the Lakers. The Laker would play three seasons in Oswego, each season finishing with a minimum of 24 points and putting a career high 26 points up his junior season. The forward finished with a career 74 points (23 goals and 51 assists) in 76 games played. The 5’ 8” New York native will fill a play maker role for the Railers as he prepares with his new team. Gillespie, along with recent signee James Anderson from Mercyhurst University, will join the group ahead a three game weekend featuring two home games. Both players are expected to make their professional debuts this weekend. The Laker will wear number 20 for his new team.
The Worcester Railers are currently last in the North Division with 46 points through 61 games played. The 21-36-4 group are set to play two divisional games against the main Mariners, who are currently in 4th, with a home-and-home series set to be played Friday and Saturday. The Railers will have puck drop at 7 p.m. at the Fidelity Bank Worcester Ice Center against the Mariners before traveling to Portland for another 7 p.m. matchup on the road. Worcester will then travel back home to welcome the Norfolk Admirals for a Sunday matinee game at 3 p.m. for an out of conference game. The Admirals are currently last in their given division with only 36 points in 60 games played. Of course, with the current state of the COVID-19, these games may not be played due to the league postponing competition. The NHL is set to announce their plans for action moving forward, and usually the ECHL along with the AHL will follow suit to their parent league.
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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.
