After their tightly contested 79-73 win over SUNY Brockport on Feb. 17, the Oswego State men’s basketball team was crowned the champions of the SUNYAC regular season.

The trip to Brockport was highly anticipated, not only because they would have been able to lock up the No.1 seed in the league and claim hosting rights for the SUNYAC Final Four, but because Brockport was the last team to defeat Oswego State this season.

The Lakers got off to a hot start on the scoring front, opening up a decent lead over their opponents, courtesy of great play from junior forward Cartier Bowman who scored nine of the first 14 points for Oswego State. The rest of the Lakers’ starters also played their part as the lead ballooned to 15 early on. However, Oswego had little time to bask in their lead as Brockport came right back with an impressive 18-9 run that was emphasized by a dunk courtesy of Tony Arnold. Of those 18 points by the Golden Eagles, Arnold contributed 13 of them.

The Lakers took a 44-36 lead going into halftime, however Brockport was able to keep Oswego within their grasp. 

The second half was not much different than the first. Brockport scored some baskets early on that brought the Lakers’ lead to within two possessions and kept it close for the majority of the half.

The Lakers and the Golden Eagles jostled back and forth with scoring happening with regularity. With under a minute left, Brockport had clawed their way back to within five points. However, Oswego State iced the game on free throws, securing their revenge victory over the only SUNYAC team to make them taste defeat this season.

Lakers’ head coach Jason Leone explained how it felt to get the win over Brockport after being bested by them before.

“It’s satisfying and obviously a really difficult accomplishment to achieve in our league,” Leone said. “It’s a league filled with great history, great coaches and great players and to come out of it with 17 wins is a tribute to the players who have put a lot of time into this. There are still bigger prizes ahead of us this week, but it’s a little bit of comfort and exuberance with earning the right to play the [SUNYAC tournament] games at home.”

Leone also complimented his team’s ability to secure the win in a nervy last few minutes with the scores close.

“During ‘winning time’ I thought we made a couple more plays than Brockport,” he said. “We certainly earned the right to win [by] making some plays while being able to go on the road against a really good team. That’s only going to be advantageous to us moving forward.”

The following day, Oswego State traveled to SUNY Fredonia for their regular season finale in a nervy 85-70 victory that threatened to end the Lakers’ regular season on sour note.

For the Lakers, it was Bowman yet again getting it done early on, scoring eight of Oswego State’s first 10 points. Unfortunately, Bowman and the rest of the Lakers were unable to outrun the 3-point proficiency of the Blue Devils. The blitz from downtown saw 18 of Fredonia’s first 22 points come from strictly behind the arc.

Due to this, Fredonia garnered a lead that grew to as much as 10 points in the first half. It was not until there was less than five minutes remaining in the first half that the Lakers took off on a 13-0 run that gave them the lead for the first time since it was 10-9. Oswego State rode the momentum into the break as they held a slim 44-40 lead.

As the second half started, Oswego State began to build on their fresh lead. A 15-5 run put the Lakers 14 points ahead of their opponents. From here, the second half resembled that of the day before in that the teams went back and forth on the offensive front, the only difference being that Fredonia had little success in finding their way back into the game.

A layup by none other than Jeremiah Sparks were the last points scored by the Lakers this regular season. A dramatic affair ended with a final score of 85-70.

While Oswego State only needed one win on the weekend to obtain their regular season crown and retain hosting rights for the SUNYAC playoffs, they came away with two hard-fought victories.

As a coach, Leone is happy with his team’s overall performance in the regular season, but emphasized it was not for the stereotypical reasons.

“When you coach a team, you have to see development as the number one thing,” Leone said. “You have to develop as a team in terms of your relationships with one another, your practice habits and you want to see your productivity increase. What I’m happy about is optically when I watched our team play in November and December and when I watch our team play now … it’s almost unrecognizable because we’ve improved a lot.”

The Lakers next game will be on Feb. 24 against No.5 seed SUNY New Paltz. Meanwhile, SUNY Brockport will face No.3 seed SUNY Cortland  as they defeated the No.6 seed SUNY Geneseo.

Photo provided by: Nate Zim