Women’s Basketball Defeats Plattsburgh

Casey Ryder, Staff Writer |

This past Saturday, the women’s basketball team defeated Plattsburgh 50-29 in their regular season finale. A day in which the team honored senior forward from Bainbridge, Megan Palmatier. The team now finishes the regular season with a 10-8 record in the conference and a 13-12 record overall. This game was purely about pride as Oneonta had already secured their place as the five seed in the conference tournament and Plattsburgh was already eliminated from postseason play.

In the early stages of the first quarter, defense reigned supreme. In somewhat remarkable fashion, there was zero scoring in the opening five minutes of the game; and it wasn’t for a lack of quality shots. However, Oneonta’s Meg Nardelli broke the deadlock by converting from three just over five minutes in. That created something of a domino effect for the Red Dragons in the remainder of the quarter. About a minute later, Nardelli converted another three pointer and following a layup from Plattsburgh’s Hope Sullivan, the team went on an 8-0 scoring run for the remaining three and a half minutes of the quarter, thanks to an additional three pointer from Nardelli and five points from Olivia Dobrovosky. As a result, the team led 14-2 heading into the second quarter.

In the beginning of the second quarter, our girls did a great job on the defensive end of the court limiting the amount of quality shots they could get off and they even forced the Cardinals into a shot clock violation in one of their first possessions. On defense, they weren’t as prolific as they were at the end of the first quarter, but a pair of Amanda Zuntag field goals put the team up by 16. However, Plattsburgh followed that up with a couple of three pointers from Payton Couture and a layup from Hannah Ruberto to cut the lead in half with just over three minutes remaining. For the remainder of the half, the teams exchanged buckets and Oneonta led 22-15.

At the start of the third quarter, Oneonta’s Nadia Brown got the team started with a layup to put the Red Dragons up by 9. Then following a layup from Plattsburgh’s Payton Couture, Oneonta picked up a series of buckets from Amanda Zuntag and Molly Stephens to extend the lead to 14. Following a Hope Sullivan free throw, Elizabeth Thompson nailed a jumper to put the team up by 15 before the media timeout. The remainder of the quarter was evenly contested but at the end, Oneonta led 36-21.

To begin the fourth, Plattsburgh’s Kayla Doody converted a three right out of the gate to cut the lead to 12. For the four minutes and 53 seconds that followed, the team maintained their comfortable lead by outscoring Plattsburgh 9-2. With the team up by 19 and with both coaches opting to go to their bench, the rest of the game would be a breeze. The final score of the game was 50-29 in favor of our Red Dragons.

This past Tuesday, the Red Dragons beat Buffalo State 59-52 to advance in the SUNYAC Tournament. Oneonta will face off against SUNY Cortland later today at 7:30 p.m. The game will be played in Cortland, but let’s keep up our school pride and root for our Red Dragons!