The State University of New York at New Paltz came away from its three-game home stand at 2-1, suffering its first conference loss of the season Tuesday against SUNY Cortland. Disappointed in the performance against the Red Dragons, the Hawks are ready to get back to work this weekend and pick up two more victories against State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) rivals, Buffalo State and Fredonia.

SUNY New Paltz (11-3 overall, 6-1 SUNYAC) needed a pair of comeback performances to earn two wins on the weekend over rival SUNY Geneseo and The College at Brockport. The Hawks were staring down a 13-point deficit with four minutes left in the fourth quarter Friday against the Knights, whose last memories of SUNY New Paltz was in the SUNYAC Championship game when the Hawks earned an overtime victory. This time around, the result was the same. The visitors came all the way back to tie the score at 64 to force extra time and from there, SUNY New Paltz made five-consecutive stops defensively to help come away with the eventual, 71-67 overtime victory.

"That's been our motto all year. We want to have games where we play 100 percent for all 40 minutes and we haven't done that yet," said Hawks freshman guard Olivia Badura. "Our weekend at Geneseo and Brockport we struggled doing that and we came out with the win, but we definitely needed to show some fight and I think we just need to do a lot more over that 40 minute span."
SUNY New Paltz battled back from a 23-point first half deficit Saturday against a tough Golden Eagles team to eventually cement a 59-51 win, but couldn't put together the same result for the third-straight game Tuesday against Cortland. Down nine with about six remaining in the fourth, the Hawks cut the game to just two with 15 seconds left, but was unable to net the go-ahead bucket to extend the game or take the lead. The loss ultimately snapped a 23-game SUNYAC winning streak that dated back to their conference championship run last season, and also dropped the team to second in the league standings.

"We went over Cortland and how our biggest thing was stopping [Beth Bonin] and we did that, but we didn't do well enough on defense," Badura said. "We didn't have as much energy as Cortland did the fight to win, so our biggest thing is probably that and we just have to run our offense effectively, and get to the offensive glass."

Determined to shrug off Tuesday's loss, SUNY New Paltz is aiming for a hot start against the Bengals and Blue Devils. The Hawks haven't lost to Fredonia in four years and their last loss against Buffalo State came in the 2014-15 season. They out-scored the two programs 317-231 in their four matchups last season.

Buffalo State heads into Friday's game at 8-5 overall and 4-2 in the SUNYAC. The Bengals earned SUNYAC wins over Fredonia, Brockport, Plattsburgh and Potsdam, winning its last three games and six of its last eight, but gave up losses in between to Cortland and Oswego State.

All-SUNYAC guard Liv LeBaron leads the Bengals with 23 points per game, which also paces the conference. LeBaron was most recently named as this week's SUNYAC Player of the Week after averaging a double-double (26 points, 12 rebounds) in her team's last three outings.

As a team, Buffalo State averages about 67 points per game, shooting 37.5 percent on the season, including 29.7 percent from behind the arc. It has given up just less than 66 points against, allowing the opposition to shoot about 40 percent from the floor and 33 percent from distance.

The Blue Devils (6-7, 2-4) are coming off their first win in four games Jan. 18 against Plattsburgh State, defeating the Cardinals 61-58. Along with a win over Plattsburgh, Fredonia owns a SUNYAC victory over Oswego, but has earned losses against Buffalo State, Cortland, Geneseo and Potsdam.

Rae White leads the team with 10.3 points per game, shooting 32.2 percent. Anna Chiacchia follows with 9.9 points and 4.7 rebounds to go along with a team-best 2.1 steals an outing. Katie Pitcher has added 9.2 points and a team-high 6.4 rebounds a contest.

"I think the biggest accomplishment is going out there and playing our best," Badura said. "Even if we win, we want to play our best. It doesn't matter if we come away with a four-point win, we just want to play our best and our hardest, and do the little things."

SUNY New Paltz is set to face Buffalo State Friday at 5:30 p.m. and then will take on Fredonia Saturday at 2 p.m.

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