Roberts Wesleyan swept visiting New York Institute of Technology in a basketball doubleheader and inducted the two newest members of their Athletic Hall of Fame in early February.
In the women’s game, the Redhawks used a 13-0 run midway through the second half to take the lead for good to extend their winning streak to four consecutive games with a 73-66 victory.
Marissa Sell (Brockport) and Samantha Courtney each had old-fashioned three-point plays during the run that put Roberts up by as many as 12 points.
The Bears made a late run and closed the Redhawks lead to just one point with 5:26 remaining, but Chelsea Sanders hit a turnaround jumper and a lay-up after a perfect baseline feed by freshman guard Emily Piacentini on consecutive trips. A Sell turnaround shot and a pair of free throws by Courtney extended the Roberts lead back to nine points with three minutes left. They hit five-of-six from the free throw line in the final 140 seconds to secure their tenth win of the year.
“Teams do a really good job of defending me and sometimes the vision isn’t there, but as the game goes on everybody gets a better feel for how to find each other,” said Sell.
Sell and Sanders each had a double-double with Sell topping the Redhawks with 21 points and 12 rebounds while Sanders had 20 points, 12 rebounds and a team-high five assists. Piacentini had ten points, Ashley Cianfriglia eight, Courtney seven and Carneisha Henry (Hilton) three to go with five rebounds.
“We have five players out right now, so we had some players step in and do some great things playing more minutes than they are used to,” said Roberts head coach Bob Segrave. “We were kind of hanging on at the end, but I was proud of how we came out of the locker room (at halftime), we knew we wanted to go inside and we went to the line 34 times – that’s been a key for us.”
The Redhawks men dug themselves a huge hole as the Bears went on a 17-0 first half run to take a 20-6 lead, but Roberts rebounded with their own 12-3 spurt to pull back into the contest with half of the points by William Bromirski on their way to a 68-66 win.
Trailing by six points at halftime, the Redhawks opened the second half with another run – this time 11-2 with six points by Herbert Alexander to take the lead.
But NYIT battled back and led by as many as eight before Roberts closed with a rush.
With the Bears up by three points with 2:23 remaining, Bromirski hit a three-pointer standing six feet behind the arc to tie the game with 1:56 left. After two defensive stops, Bromirski hit one of two free throws to give Roberts a one-point lead with 29 seconds left and Patrick Downer made another free throw with ten seconds remaining. NYIT missed a three-point attempt from the left corner at the final buzzer.
Downer scored 15 second half points and led the Redhawks with 17 points, Isaac Medeiros had 16, Alexander 14 and Tyrel Dixon 11 while Alexander led with eight rebounds from his guard position.
Athletic Hall of Fame inductions
At halftime of the men’s contest, Beth (Austin) Kresge ‘01 and Leah (Glauser) Helbling ‘93 were inducted into the Roberts Wesleyan Athletics Hall of Fame as the Class of 2014.
Kresge established herself as perhaps the greatest women’s cross country runner in program history as the only four-time NCCAA All-American in Roberts Wesleyan history, finishing 11th, fifth, seventh, and 15th in her four years at the NCCAA National Championships. She is the only female runner to qualify individually for the NAIA National Championship race four times.
On the track, Kresge held nine program records upon her graduation in 2001. Her record in the outdoor 3,000m race still stands (10:28.56) and her time in the indoor 5,000m (18:48.40) ranks fifth all-time.
Helbling was a part of the first Women’s Basketball team to qualify for the NCCAA National Championships in her sophomore season and also advanced during her junior and senior years as well.
The former forward ranks in the top ten in the program record books in several categories as she scored 1,159 career points from 1989 through 1993. She ranks seventh in career points, fifth in field goals made (501), and seventh in career rebounds (633).
Her 1992-1993 squad holds the distinction of being the first team in program history to go undefeated at home.
