Box Score New Paltz, NY – It was a close contest through the first 22 minutes for the State University of New York at New Paltz men's basketball team against Oswego State Tuesday. However, a scoring drought in the middle of the second half hindered the Hawks' hopes of an upset over the league-leading Lakers and ultimately fell, 67-49.

"I think we just defended well, and we knew what we had to do and we actually did it," said SUNY New Paltz coach Keith Kenney of the tight first-half. "We just weren't scoring, and even their final out-put was [67] points, against the best team in the league I'll take that. We just couldn't score. I don't think it was anything specific that changed. They hit a few shots at the end of the shot clock, some deep 3's that kind of gave them the lead. But, we just struggled to score. It wasn't a defensive problem tonight."
The Hawks matched Oswego's defensive intensity in the first half and traded the lead nine times before Tristan Wissemann tied the game at 10 with a free throw for SUNY New Paltz. The Lakers countered with a 7-0 run, which ended on a Wissemann bucket in the paint late in the half.

A pair of free throws by the Hawks' Jake Passaretti trimmed the deficit to three, but Oswego's Allen Durutovic answered with a lay-up on the other end to push the cushion back to five. The two teams traded possessions in the final minute of the half, but neither could capitalize, as Scott Reisert played solid defense in the remaining seconds to keep the score at 25-20 for SUNY New Paltz.

The Hawks opened up the second half with four-straight points, including a tight call on a Wissemann jumper that toed the 3-point line to cut the score, 25-24. After a pair of defensive stops by the Hawks, Garcia found Reisert running the floor in transition. Reisert earned a trip to the foul line on his attempt at the rim, but made just the front end of his pair of free throws to push a stalemate of 25-all.

From there, the Lakers proceeded on a 28-5 run for the following 10 minutes to build up their cushion and roll to their 12th-straight conference victory.
Reisert picked up his fourth foul with 17 minutes still left in the half and was forced to head to the bench for the majority of the Lakers run. They took advantage without his presence in the paint and offensive prowess around the hoop.

"Scott is one of our top scorers and I left him out there, because we were struggling to score the entire game and it was a gamble," Kenney said. "He picked up the fourth foul and every time he is not on the floor, it hurts us scoring wise. He's our second leading scorer, but I didn't think this game was about defense, it was about offense and that is why I decided to roll the dice with him, because we were struggling to score."

Isaiah Bien-Aise put an end to the run for the Hawks, scoring four-straight point off the bench with about nine minutes remaining. Although Bien-Aise provided a spark, leading his team with nine points in the final minutes, it wasn't enough to climb out of the large deficit, which ballooned to as many as 24.

SUNY New Paltz finished with its lowest scoring mark of the season after shooting 30.4 percent from the field, while the Lakers shot slightly better at 41.1 percent.

Wissemann led the Hawks with 10 points in 23 minutes, followed by Bien-Aise, who also added three rebounds and a block in 18 minutes. Reisert finished with eight points, five rebounds, one block and a steal in 25 minutes.

Despite the loss, SUNY New Paltz still holds on to the sixth seed in the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) playoff race, while the Lakers have a full grip on the top seed.

The Hawks are back in action Friday and Saturday for their last regular season road weekend of the season against The College at Brockport and SUNY Geneseo.

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