The College at Brockport men’s basketball team ran out to a 12-0 lead, used a 17-0 first half run to extend that advantage to 28 and took a 31 point lead into halftime in a 98-46 thrashing of New Paltz to improve their record to 6-0, 2-0.
Churchville-Chili grad Marcus Blythers scored 13 of his team-high in the first half while also leading the squad with nine rebounds as 11 different players contributed offensively.
“Our only two goals are to win a SUNYAC championship and then win a national championship,” Blythers said. “We have five seniors on this team and everybody depends on us, so we’re going to lead by example every day.”
“Honestly, I think our team is so great that we’re going to beat everybody.”
Freshman Jacob Peterson, who stands at 6’ 7”, netted 12 second half points in extended playing time while Hamed Shamseldin, Devonn Gavin and Malick Sylla gave the Golden Eagles five players scoring in double figures.
Sophomore Jake Mitchell also had a solid effort with seven points, six rebounds and a team-best four steals plus three assists.
“We knew we had older guys who could handle playing on the road, but with our first four games being true road games, I don’t know if I was expecting us to come out of that unscathed,” Brockport head coach Greg Dunne said.
Brockport is receiving votes in the NCAA Top-25 national poll.
“We (the coaching staff) have our work cut out for us making sure that they’re not getting too high because haven’t beat a team that’s over .500 yet. So we’re going to get tested and hopefully these guys aren’t reading their press clippings too much and understand that when we play better teams we need to play better.”
In the women’s game, the Golden Eagles managed just one field goal in the first quarter and were behind by as many as 20 points in the first half before a 10-0 run late in the second quarter cut the deficit to ten at the half.
Junior Lindsay Johnson sparked the rally hitting a jumper and lay-up followed by baskets on drive by Faith Welch and Emily Merrill. Johnson beat the halftime buzzer on her way to her first double-double in a Brockport uniform with 20 points and 15 rebounds.
The lead was cut to nine on a third quarter trey by Olivia Lebaron, but the Golden Eagles dropped to 0-6, 0-2 in the 65-45 loss.
“We played Lindsay at the post last year and moved her to the guard spot because we thought she could do some work from the perimeter and score some threes, and I rethought that the other night,” Brockport head coach Corrine Jones said.
“I thought, she’s tough and she’ll fight, so let’s put her inside and see what she can do.”
“We are resilient and we’re young but continue to take steps forward. I thought we played 20 minutes of good basketball right in the middle of the game and, if we can turn that into 40 minutes, we’ll do a nice job this season.”
