Oswego State Lakers men’s basketball took care of business tonight taking down the big underdog’s SUNY Potsdam in a 93-60 blowout.

The Lakers improve to 16-4 overall and 12-1 in SUNYAC play, this makes it seven straight wins for the Lakers, including an 11^th straight SUNYAC victory.

Jamir Ferebee in 25 minutes scored 21 points, and went 10-10 from the free throw line where he has excelled all season. Brian Sortino tallied 16 points and dished out five assists. Mykelle Krecko in 17 minutes grabbed 15 boards, helping Oswego outrebound Potsdam 51-40 on the glass.

“I thought our energy was good at the beginning of the game, I think when you play games against teams that don’t have good records I think it’s really important you play with pace at both ends,’ Coach Leone said. “Just to get the bodies moving and really anticipate, hopefully you get some turnovers that leads to easy baskets. I thought they did a better job with that than the first time we played them.”

The game started off a little back and forth for the first five minutes, Lakers were leading 10-9, and then a three-pointer from senior Pat Caruso sparked a 15-2 run for the Lakers to push their lead to 25-11.

From there the Lakers were able to breathe a little bit and give all the players off the bench playing time opportunities.  Coach Leone kept it to reasonable lineups having starters play with some of the reserves.

Senior Matt Crockett pushed the ball down the floor with six seconds remaining in the first half, his shot attempt banked in for three at the buzzer to give the Lakers a 41-24 lead at halftime. Crockett was one of 14 Lakers today to score a field goal.

“It was good, they all work hard and we have a talented group of guys, those guys that haven’t gotten a chance to play most of them are younger guys that going to be important pieces moving forward in our program,” Leone said. “In terms of the tangible minutes they play, they are guys in our plans down the road, so any experience they can get during game action is critical.”

Lakers once again impressed from the free throw, as they have been lately against SUNYAC opponents.  24 out of 28 free throws went down for the Lakers, dominating Potsdam in free throw percentage 85%-51%. Free throws win games, and that goes with the recipe of the Lakers success.

“They’re good free throw shooters because they’re good shooters, period,” Leone said. “They just get up there and knock them down, I can’t analyze that part of the game too much.”

Oswego State will have their work cut out for them being first place in SUNYAC, every team will likely give them their best shot, and look to play spoiler on the Lakers season.

“It’s all about keeping our focus,” Ferebee said.  “You know we are in first place, we got a target on our back, so we got to take every team seriously.”

Tomorrow the Lakers host SUNY Plattsburgh, despite their average record, it was a tough game for the Lakers to edge out last time they faced, squeaking by 83-82.

“It’s going to be probably our toughest game all year, aside from us, this is probably the team playing the best in the league,” Leone said. “A sleeping giant, sort of speak, woke up a couple weeks ago. They can really score, and they’re good in areas where sometimes we tend to be poor.”

SUNY Plattsburgh did suffer a loss tonight at SUNY Cortland 80-59, despite coming in hot with a four game win-streak.

As for other SUNYAC contests, Brockport bounced back after their two game skid to beat SUNY Geneseo 98-79. They remain only 1.5 back from first-place Oswego State in the SUNYAC standings.

The Oswego State Lakers freight train of a team looks to keep it rolling with SUNY Plattsburgh coming to town tomorrow, tip-off for the game is set for 2:00pm at Max Ziel Gymnasium here in Oswego.