OSWEGO, NY — On Sunday, September 13th, SUNY Oswego President Deborah Stanley released new guidelines and restrictions regarding on campus activity for the Fall 2020 semester. One of these restrictions regards Oswego State Athletics as the college announced in a campus wide email that all practices, meetings, workouts, and gatherings will be suspended for the remainder of the semester. Since August 31st, the fall sports of Men’s and Women’s Soccer, Field Hockey, and Men’s and Women’s Cross-Country teams have been conducting practices and team meetings. This past week, Men’s and Women’s Tennis started their “non-traditional” practice season. This coming week, Volleyball would have joined the spring sports teams of Softball, Baseball, and the Men’s and Women’s Lacrosse would have started their four-week practice period.
With this change in policy, winter sports teams will not be able to prepare for their season until January 1st, the date set by the SUNYAC conference back on July 20th. This developing situation will continued to be monitored by WTOP 10 as the 2020 calendar year wraps up.
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Oswego State Men’s Lacrosse Prepares for Rematch versus Geneseo
GENESEO, N.Y. — The Oswego State Men’s Lacrosse team will look for their first win of the 2021 season as they take on the SUNY Geneseo Knights on Saturday, April 24th. Oswego lost their first matchup against the Knights 19-8 just a few days prior on April 22nd, and will be out for revenge on Saturday.
The 2021 season for Oswego Men’s Lacrosse is one the Lakers will look to bounce back from, though they still have two games remaining. The Lakers come into Saturday’s contest on a 5-game losing streak, with their last victory being on March 7, 2020, against SUNY Morrisville. Although Oswego has already been eliminated from the postseason, Coach Drew Bezek will still be looking for competitive play out of his young players, like Lucas Cioch. Cioch leads the Lakers in points, including 7 goals and 5 assists. Junior attackman, Weston Gray, will look to continue his hot streak versus Geneseo as he totaled 5 goals and 1 assist in their last matchup. The Knights will be lead by their dynamic attackman trio of Kevin Cook, James Pratt, and Tim Fallo. Cook leads the team in goals with 17 and all three players have totaled over 20 points this season (Cook- 21, Pratt- 21, Fallo- 28). Oswego senior goalkeeper, Kevin O’Donnell, will have a to have a better defensive performance along with the rest of the defense in order for the Lakers to get an upset victory.
While Oswego will look to play the role of spoiler on Saturday, Geneseo needs a win to keep pace with SUNY Cortland in the west division. Geneseo could still pass Cortland for the first seed in the west division heading into the SUNYAC Championship. Faceoff is set for 1:00 p.m. at Geneseo for a SUNYAC West matchup.
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Oswego State women’s basketball splits in weekend road trip
ONEONTA, N.Y. — The Oswego State women’s basketball team split in their weekend doubleheader, falling to New Paltz 56-37 on Friday before defeating Oneonta 56-52 on Saturday.
On Friday, the Lakers were able to keep pace with the two-time defending SUNYAC champions throughout most of the game. After a back-and-forth first quarter, New Paltz built a 19-8 lead by the opening minute of the second quarter. Though, the Lakers stormed back and went on a 13-2 run to knot the game at 21-21 with four minute remaining in the half. Freshman Diamond Pickett and senior Danielle Caivana combined for 11 points during that stretch run. Both teams scored last-minute buckets to end the half with Oswego trailing 27-24 at the break. Caivana started the second half off hot, scoring the Lakers first five points of the third quarter and tying the game at 29 apiece. However, that would be as close as the Lakers got for the remainder of the game. New Paltz went on a 17-0 run across the third and into the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach. Oswego outrebounded the Hawks 48-37, but were unable to capitalize on many second chance scoring opportunities.
Looking to avenge their loss the night before, Oswego started Saturday’s game off strong. The Lakers we’re up 19-11 after the opening quarter, lead by freshman Shania Iglesias who contributed a whopping 11 points. Both teams went on scoring runs throughout the second quarter, bring the halftime score to 31-21 Lakers. Oswego started to pull away in the second half. Danielle Caivana became red hot from beyond the arc, hitting a trio of three pointers as the Oswego lead grew to a staggering 21 points. However, Oneonta rallied back in the final 10 minutes of regulation. The Red Dragons went on a 24-9 run and brought the game within five points with under minute to go. However, free throws from Caivana and Diamond Pickett iced the game for the Lakers. Iglesias finished with a season-high 20 points while Danielle Caivana put up 15 of her own. Diamond Pickett also totaled a game-high 14 rebounds and three steals.
With Saturday’s victory, Oswego swept the season series with Oneonta and also snapped a five-game losing streak. While the Lakers improved to 5-17 on the season, they are unfortunately eliminated from SUNYAC playoff contention. Although this is the case, Oswego will look to finish the season off strong as they host their final two games next weekend against SUNY Brockport and Fredonia. Tip-off is set for 5:30 p.m. on Friday at the Max Ziel Gymnasium.
Image Provided by Will Rogers, WTOP 10 Photography Department
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Men’s Hockey Trends Down in Recent USCHO Poll
OSWEGO, NY — On Monday, January 6th, United States College Hockey Online released the first national rankings of the new year for Men’s Hockey Division III. Oswego State continues to move down the list as the Lakers sit ranked 15th receiving 35 points after slotting in 10th previously. The 7-5-0 team is currently on a two game losing streak after dropping games to Saint Mary’s and #9 University of New England. The Saint Mary’s University Cardinals received votes for the first time this season after upsetting both Oswego State and Williams College, who moved up one spot to #13 this poll.
Upcoming opponent Utica College moved inside the top 10 as they are currently ranked 7th with an overall record of 9-2-2. The Pioneers travel into Oswego this Friday after recently traveling to Michigan to play #12 Adrian College. Utica came away with two overtime wins that weekend and a bump in the rankings.
Elmira College and SUNY Canton both receive votes once again as both teams travel into Oswego in the month of January. The 7-3-1 Elmira Soaring Eagles (6) recently came off a win against familiar opponent Plattsburgh 4-1. The Canton Roos (16) are 6-3-1 and also defeated the Cardinals 4-3 earlier in the season. Elmira faces off with Oswego this Saturday while Canton won’t play the Lakers till later in the month.
Geneseo moves up one ranking into the second spot after securing two wins this past weekend. The Knights also find themselves in second in the SUNYAC standings right behind the Lakers with a 5-1-1 conference record. The two teams meet up again on February 7th in the Marano Campus Center for a rematch as Geneseo took the first meeting 9-1 back in November.
The Lakers still have 13 regular season games left before the start of the SUNYACs. This second half of the season features multiple nationally ranked opponents along with multiple conference match ups that are important for Oswego to stay in first in the SUNYAC standings.
