New Paltz, NY —Led by another stingy defensive performance Saturday, the State University of New York at New Paltz captured a SUNYAC weekend sweep after defeating visiting Fredonia State, 49-38 Friday. 
 
Neither team shot particularly well, and the Hawks (9-3 overall, 5-1 SUNYAC) held a slight one-point lead at halftime but dominated the final 20 minutes and forced the Blue Devils (7-6, 2-4) into 26 turnovers in the game to help propel an explosive third quarter to aid in the eventual double-digit win.
 
"We defended well in the first half, but we intended to be more aggressive on the ball and look for some more traps if they presented themselves," said SUNY New Paltz coach Jamie Seward. "We talked at halftime about needing to press the issue with that because we had to try to create some offense with our defense in case we kept having trouble scoring, which we certainly did."
 
Fredonia closed the gap to start the second quarter, opening with five unanswered points to take a 14-9 lead, which was capped off with an Isabella Wier 3-pointer within the first minute of the period. Semaiah Williams ended the stretch after getting to the line following an offensive rebound. Victoria Venus chipped in for the Hawks as soon as she was subbed into the game, as she aggressively attacked the basket on her first touch of the ball to cut the score to 14-12 with still 7:30 left in the half.
 
The Hawks started gaining momentum as Graci Serravillo followed with a made trey to give her team back the lead. SUNY New Paltz continued causing turnovers and forcing tough shots, but couldn't capitalize on the offense end to pile on their slim advantage. Venus again answered with a basket underneath for the first score in three minutes. Cassidy Deaver nearly erupted the gym with an and-1, as she earned a block on one end, pushed the ball in transition with her attempt on the other end going in-and-out while taking contact to earn a trip to the line. The two teams traded points to help SUNY New Paltz keep a four-point cushion with about a minute and a half to go, but the Blue Devils ended the half strong with three unanswered points to cut the lead to 20-19 at the break. 
Fredonia out-worked the Hawks on the glass in the first half, 31-24 and earned 14 trips to the foul line to keep the game tight. SUNY New Paltz knew it had to up the pressure in the second half and the hosts did just that, creating havoc whenever the Blue Devils tried bringing up the ball, forcing them to play fast, which helped cause 15 second-half turnovers.
 
"We just talked about how we let them come out and play their game and in the second half we were like, 'we need to stick to our own game plan,'" Serravillo said. "We can pressure these guys. We can get up on them and as long as we stick to that we know we are going to get the turnovers and we're going to speed them up like we know we can. That kind of led to us getting into our offense as best as we could, even though we didn't execute our offense as well as we wanted to today, but I think our defense really picked us up and we really needed that in the second half."
 
Serravillo served as the catalyst. She forced a turnover on a charge call to start the period and after turning the ball over on a traveling violation in the first minute of the third, she immediately won the ball back as Fredonia inbounded and put up two easy points for her team. Serravillo then earned another steal two possessions later, and fed Brianna Fitzgerald for two more to extend the advantage to seven. She then ignited the bench by swishing a 3-pointer following a stop defensively, and the Hawks started to roll from there.
 
"It's always that first play. If you can dig in and get that one first turnover, that first 10 second call or anything like that, speed them up and make them throw the ball away — it really helps bring the energy up in the gym, on our bench and everyone gets really into it. I feel like that really carried us along," Serravillo said.
 
SUNY New Paltz held a 10-point lead entering the fourth after scoring a game-high 17 points in the quarter, while holding Fredonia to four baskets and no trips to the charity stripe. The Hawks ballooned their lead to as many as 13 in the fourth and continued the pressure, trapping early and making the Blue Devils uncomfortable with the ball in their hand. With two minutes left, the visitors cut the score to nine and although SUNY New Paltz struggled to get a basket, its defense held Fredonia scoreless the rest of the way.
 
Along with Serravillo, Deaver was just as active in the backcourt. When she was in the game, the Hawks were plus-16 as she added two steals and a block to her stat sheet.
 
"Graci and Cass are becoming quite the disruptive backcourt defensively," Seward said. "They both did an excellent job in both games."
 
"Cass is always up playing defense and I love playing defense with her and I know I have people behind me that I can trust, they're talking to me and I think that helps us work as a unit once we get that first steal, first turnover. We're all like, 'we're locked in now, we got this,' and that can really help us on the offense side and fuel us," Serravillo added. "We needed that today, because we really didn't execute our offense as well as we wanted to."
 
Serravillo ended with a career-night, finishing with career-bests in points (11), steals (6) and assists (5) with the latter two categories also coming as game-high's to go along with five rebounds. Fitzgerald led the team offensively with 14 points, six rebounds, one assist and one steal. Lexi Van Vorst followed with seven points and two rebounds, while Williams pulled down a team-leading 11 rebounds, five of which on the offensive glass and added a block and steal. Venus contributed with six points, eight rebounds and a steal.
 
Although the Hawks shot just above 27 percent in the game, including 4-of-19 from 3-point range, their defense limited the Blue Devils to 25 percent shooting, allowing just two made baskets from the perimeter. It was the second-straight game where they held their opponent to under 40 points and season-low point totals.
 
"The whole weekend we held both teams to 73 points total and that's a big boost for us, because going into Christmas break, we were saying that we are forcing turnovers, we're being chaotic, but need to be able to get stops and finish plays with a rebound," Serravillo said. "I think we started to do that in these last two games and that's going to fuel us going into these next four games that are big games on little rest, but we can see that we're getting better."
 
Fredonia, meanwhile, dropped its second straight game after losing to Oneonta Thursday night as that outing was its first since Dec. 11. The Blue Devils drop to 2-4 in the conference, while SUNY New Paltz, winning its third consecutive game, improve to 5-1 in the SUNYAC just behind undefeated SUNY Cortland who the Hawks have yet to play.
 
"In fairness to our opponents this weekend, they hadn't played in a long time, and I'm sure have had some sort of disrupted practice schedule plus a difficult trip across the state that contributed to that as much as anything," Seward said. "But I do think we've had a better focus and effort on defense of late."
 
SUNY New Paltz has a big week coming up, playing four games in six days with the first coming on the road in a rescheduled matchup against rival SUNY Geneseo. Tip-off is scheduled for 2 p.m.

Post-Game Interview featuring Graci Serravillo


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