SUNY Brockport’s men’s basketball team took a step closer to clinching their first SUNYAC regular season conference championship since the 2013-14 campaign with a 104-57 victory over Fredonia. The women earlier came back from as many as six points down for a 67-58 win.
The men ran out to a 31-11 start, led by sophomore Jahidi Wallace’s eight points, and Brockport High grad Antonio Alvarez and sophomore point guard Danny Ashley each adding a trey and conversion after a steal during the run.
The Golden Eagles closed the first half on a 15-7 spurt as grad student Tyler Collins, junior Tyree Grimsley, and Monte Stroman combined for all the points.
If the result was in any doubt, Brockport put that to rest as they built the lead to 29 with a 12-2 run midway through the second half as sophomore Tyler Sullivan scored eight of those points, and later extended it to a 40-point advantage as Alvarez knocked down three treys, and several other players came off the bench to hit four others.
The team shot an astounding 57 percent from behind the arc.
“We focus on that (the inside-outside game) every day in practice,” Collins, who added five steals, six assists, and five rebounds to his eight points, said. “When you just pass around the perimeter, those threes are hard, but if you get it inside and kick it out straight on, that’s how you practice it your while life so those shots go in.”
Sullivan finished with a team-high 16 points, with Alvarez and Stroman each scoring 14, Wallace 12, and Grimsley 11 along with a team-best five rebounds for Brockport.
Brockport improved to 19-3 overall and 14-1 in conference play and can clinch the top-seed and semi-final host roll with two more victories in the final three games.
Senior Justin Summers, out with a knee injury since January, was honored before the game for becoming just the fourth player in program history with 1,000 career points and 600 rebounds.
In the women’s game, Fredonia led in the first quarter by as many as six points before the Golden Eagles turned up the tempo and took control.
Junior Julianna Taylor began the rally that put Brockport ahead for good with back to-back field goals to end and start the first and second quarter. Senior Bailey Pratt hit a three-pointer before sophomore Kylee Rosbrook scored three consecutive baskets.
Brockport finished off a 24-10 second quarter with six different players contributing offensively.
Their lead was as many as 16 points to end the third quarter, but any hope the Blue Devils had of coming back ended as sophomore guard Chelsea Henry went five-of-six from the free throw line over the final minute.
“The second quarter we started rebounding a lot more,” Taylor said. “Defensive and offensive and that’s one of our game goals. That was a big key to that quarter.
“This is a big one (as Brockport is fighting for one of the last two remaining playoff spots in SUNYAC). It’s always good to beat a team twice and this helps a lot for playoff standings.”
“We’ve been trying to find that balance of when we try to score in transition and when do we slow it down,” Brockport head coach Corrine Jones said. “I think Juliana (Taylor) and Bailey Pratt just decided that we needed to attack more since the first quarter was so slow.”
Taylor and Rosbrook combined for 30 points, freshman Erin Radack led the team with nine rebounds and three steals, while Henry added three assists to her two blocks as the Golden Eagles improved their conference record to 7-8 and solidly in fifth place in the conference standings.
