Box Score BROCKPORT, N.Y. – With their once strong numbers dwindling rapidly, the Plattsburgh State men's basketball team appeared to be limping into the 2014 SUNYAC Men's Basketball Championship Tournament.
Without the services of two of their primary scorers, the No. 2 seeded Cardinals rallied and banded together to play one of their most complete games of the season with a trip to the SUNYAC Championship Tournament finals on the line.
Sophomore Edward Correa netted a game-high 20 points while junior Ezra Hodgson added 18 – including the go-ahead jumper with 44 seconds remaining – to lift the short-handed Cardinals to a 73-69 triumph over No. 3 seed SUNY Geneseo in the first of two SUNYAC Championship Tournament semifinal games on Friday night at Jim & John Vlogianitis Gymnasium on the campus of The College at Brockport.
The matchup was a carbon copy of the one that occurred last season in the semifinals of the conference tourney, but this edition of the Cardinals turned the ball over just five times, helping them negate a 51-percent (26-of-51) shooting performance by the Knights.
Final-year man John Perez added a double-double of 18 points and a game-high 13 rebounds as well as a pivotal steal in the closing seconds for the Cardinals who move on to the finals for the second consecutive season.
Coming out of the gates strong in the neutral-site tussle, the Cardinals opened up their largest lead of the bout in the early stages of the first frame. Correa got things started on the first foot by drilling a deep triple on the first possession of the game.
A 6-0 surge by the Knights was countered by a 10-3 spurt by the designated home team. Each and every member of the starting five put in points for the Cardinals during the run with Perez capping things off with a pair of layups to make it a 16-9 score with 13:39 to go in the frame.
Countering the Cardinals' run were the Knights, who embarked on an 11-0 scoring expedition that wrapped up with a fast break layup from Gordon Lyons.
Going right back to work from beyond the arc, the Cardinals regained the lead after Hodgson and Correa knocked down long balls on consecutive possessions. Armed with a 29-25 edge with 5:52 to go in the initial stanza, the Cardinals hung on desperately as the Knights continued to operate down on the block.
The final pair of points the Cardinals would post came on free throw makes from Perez and Xavier Thomas. Matt Curry and Lyons slung in two points each in the final 1:10 to hand the Knights a 32-31 lead headed into the halftime break.
It seemed as though the momentum the Knights gathered in their late push only wore the Cardinals down further, as Plattsburgh State found itself down 59-52 after an 8-0 Geneseo run that came entirely on points in the paint.
As they had all night though, the Cardinals regrouped and used a 12-2 run which culminated on a three-point splashdown by Mike Mitchell to emerge as the leaders via a 64-61 tally. James McKenna, though, put in five of the next seven points for the Knights to give them a 69-66 lead with 2:48 to go.
From that point on, the Cardinals' defense was impenetrable as they forced just one more field goal attempt and three turnovers by the Knights. Perez knocked down two free throws, and after an offensive dead ball rebound after Chris Manning missed a pair of free throws, Hodgson hit his go-ahead jumper.
Perez closed things out by putting in three of his four free throw attempts in the final nine seconds.
Curry and Lyons tallied 18 points apiece for the Knights while Fedge added 16.
If the Cardinals want to win their first SUNYAC Tournament Championship since the 2009-10 campaign, they have to get past the No. 1 overall seed in the Golden Eagles of Brockport. The fight for the league crown will begin at 4 p.m. on Saturday afternoon.
