Men’s Basketball Defeats Brockport in SUNYAC Tournament

Casey Ryder, Staff Writer |

This past Friday, the men’s basketball team defeated Brockport 64-54 in the semifinals of the SUNYAC conference tournament.

In the first half, our boys came flying out the gates. Senior Forward Daniel Derice got the game’s first bucket with a layup and a minute and a half later he followed that up with a three-pointer to put the team up 5. Following a three-pointer from Brockport’s Devante Hagins, Oneonta continued to click on the offensive end with a jumper from Dylan Trombley. Finally, a layup from Sean Nolan put them up by 6, and Brockport was forced to take a timeout just three minutes into the contest.

Coming out of the break, the game became more closely contested with both teams exchanging scores. David Grady scored a layup for Brockport to cut the lead to 4 and that was followed up by a layup from Oneonta’s Michael Ortale and a three-pointer from Dylan Trombley to put Oneonta up 14-5.

Following Trombley’s three-pointer, Brockport began to cut the deficit. For the next 6 minutes, they would outscore the Red Dragons 12-5 culminating in the game being level at 19 with nine minutes left in the half.

However, for the remainder of the half Oneonta would reestablish their dominance in the game and pull away from Brockport thanks to the ridiculous play of Junior Guard Dylan Trombley.

With just under nine minutes remaining, point guard Frankie Williams found Trombley who converted from three to put them up 22-19. 43 seconds later Trombley doubled the Red Dragons’ lead when once again Williams found him, and he converted from three. Following a layup from Brockport’s Brandon Kennedy-Gray, Trombley scored again from three and later Williams had a layup to extend the lead to 9.

For the remaining five minutes of the half, Oneonta outscored Brockport 11-5 courtesy of a pair of field goals from Trombley, a pair of layups from Dylan Craft, and a three-pointer from Michael Ortale. As a result, the team led 41-26 at the half. Trombley in particular was electric. He finished the half with an astounding 23 points, accounting for more than half of the team’s points.

Moving into the second half, things would not be as rosy for our Red Dragons. Brockport was completely dominant in the early stages. In the opening four and a half minutes, Brockport outscored Oneonta 8-0 to cut the lead to 7. Six of those points came from Junior Guard Jahidi Wallace who would be pivotal for the Golden Eagles in the second half.

Following that, Oneonta got a pair of layups from Michael Ortale, the second of which he drew a foul on and converted the ensuing free throw to put the team up 12.

In response to Ortale’s free throw, Brockport went on another dominant run to further cut the lead. For the next three and a half minutes they outscored the Red Dragons 12-2 with eight of those points coming from Freshmen Forward Mekhi Beckett. As a result, they cut the Red Dragons’ lead to just 2 with nine and a half minutes remaining.

The remainder of the game was evenly contested, but Oneonta was slightly better of the two sides. Following the dominant run from Brockport, they went on a brief 6-0 run themselves to extend the lead to 8.

Following that run by the Red Dragons, the game was evenly contested with both teams exchanging buckets. However, Oneonta did enough to maintain the lead they had built up and with a minute and fourteen seconds remaining, Michael Ortale scored a slam dunk off of a fast break to put the game on ice.

Ultimately the game finished 64-54 in favor of the Red Dragons. As a result, the team moved on to the SUNYAC Championship which took place on Saturday vs Oswego.