The College at Brockport women and men’s basketball team swept an afternoon basketball doubleheader over Potsdam as they honored eight seniors playing their final regular season home games.
The women began with a 53-40 win to clinch the sixth and final SUNYAC playoff spot. Leading by only five points in the third quarter, the Golden Eagles went on a 10-0 run highlighted by a trey and field goal, by senior Marissa Pike, a pair of free throws from Alyssa Rusinko and a long trey by Jenna Lividini.
Becky Rossier and Pike hit three free throws to start the fourth quarter to put Brockport up by 16 and the result was not in doubt the rest of the way.
Senior Olivia Suhr led the team with 17 points—ten in the first half. Senior Erin Cunningham led with 13 rebounds while Pike scored ten points. The final senior—Lisa Yacovoni had one assist in 16 minutes of action.
“Just to come from where we were last season to how much we’ve progressed this season, these girls have been working their butts off for almost four years for the seniors and we’ve never made the playoffs, so it’s definitely an exciting time now,” Suhr said. “After the first month, we knew we were a different team this season and could go much farther than anyone thought we could.”
“I’m pretty pumped,” first year head coach Corinne Jones said about making the playoffs. “We were on a little skid lately, but when you look at the big picture and look at what we did this year, we overachieved and I think we had the players to do what we’ve done.
“I told them (the seniors) at the start of the game that they’ve started something bigger than themselves and can look back in four or five years and say they were a part of starting that. To have ten-plus wins and to go .500 in conference; we’ve haven’t done that since 2008-09, so it’s nice.”
Brockport lost to third seed Fredonia in the SUNYAC quarterfinals 89-81 to end their season.
In the men’s game, the first half featured ten lead changes before a Golden Eagle ten-point run gave them the lead for good in a 92-76 victory. Senior Clifton Lyerly led all scorers with 31 points with five assists and two steals. Senior Pat Modzelewski had 12 points with six rebounds, classmate Olusola Adeniran had seven boards and six points with three blocks and Ismael Pierre added a field goal in his final regular season game. Junior Levi Pace had a double-double with 18 points and a team-high 11 rebounds over only 20 minutes of playing time.
With the win, Brockport earned the third seed for the SUNYAC tournament and a quarterfinal home game against sixth seed Buffalo State.
“For whatever reason we are not playing well at home, but we go on the road and play really well,” Brockport head coach Greg Dunne said before his team advanced to the SUNYAC semi-final with an 82-78 home win over Buffalo State.
