Cortland Standard .net

By ALAN BUTLER
Sports Editor
Given the chance to become the first SUNY Cortland men’s basketball team to open the season with nine consecutive wins since the winter of 1952-53, Tuesday’s conference matinee turned disastrous for the Red Dragons.
Stunning first half turnover trouble and a torrid stretch of second half shooting by New Paltz’s R.J. Rosa were the major reasons why the Red Dragons fell 78-73 on their Corey Gymnasium home floor.
How shaky were the previously unbeaten Red Dragons in the early going against New Paltz? Well, at one juncture they had just as many turnovers as they had points — 16 being that not-so-magic number in this case.
How torrid was Rosa in the early stages of the second half? The slender senior swished five consecutive 3-pointers within a four-minute span that enabled the Hawks to turn a 33-20 halftime edge into a 48-28 advantage that withstood Cortland’s frantic comeback bid the rest of the way.
Rosa, who came into the game averaging 14.7 points per contest, finished with a game-high 31 for the Hawks while going 7-of-9 from 3-point range. He was a perfect 6-for-6 shooting treys in the second half.
“A lot of guys did not do the things they’ve been doing, which had a cumulative effect and impacted us as a group,” said Coach Tom Spanbauer after Cortland fell to 2-1 in the SUNY Athletic Conference and 8-1 overall. “We weren’t crisp with anything we did.”
In the second half, Cortland reduced its turnover count and posted 53 points, 20 of those scored by back-up backcourter T.J. Hefele. The junior lefty connected on five on the nine 3-pointers he attempted.
But the closest Cortland came was the final five-point margin on Hefele’s last-second lay-up.
Blair Estarfaa with 13 points and Lamard Herron with 10 also scored in double figures for the Red Dragons, though they shot just a combined 8-for-25 from the floor. In comeback mode after their shaky start, the Red Dragons hoisted up 42 attempts from 3-point range and made 13 of those.
“THE LEAGUE IS JUST so difficult, especially in both men’s and women’s basketball. To steal one on the road I’ll take it, especially with the snow and arriving just 40 minutes before game time,”said New Paltz coach Mike Rejniak.
His Hawks headed home also 2-1 in the conference and just 3-6 overall despite missing a couple of key players including Groton High School graduate Keegan Donovan. Junior guard Donovan did not make the trip and is scheduled to return from disciplinary suspension this weekend according to Rejniak.
A trapping zone defense employed by New Paltz stymied the Red Dragons in the early going, Cortland also making just 5-of-25 shots over those troubling opening 20 minutes.
“I like to think of myself as a man-to-man coach, but all of a sudden I think I might be a zone coach,” said Rejniak. “It’s taken a lot of time for everybody to figure out the niches and buy in. One thing we do have is great length, so we can cover a lot of ground. If we were a little smaller I don’t know if I’d go with it.”
Cortland was ahead 11-6 after Estarfaa came off the bench to hit a 3-pointer and Herron made a pull-up jumper leading to a New Paltz timeout called with 11:32 left in the opening half. After that chat the Hawks went on a 25-4 run that built a 33-16 lead capped by a Rosa lay-up off a successful in-bounds play.
When Rosa went off early in the second half to build that 20-point bulge, Cortland still had comeback chances.
Freshman guard came up with a three-point play banking in a layup high off the glass to get Cortland within 60-53 with 5:45 left to play. New Paltz, recovered, but shortly after a Hefele trey Cortland had another open 3-pointer bid that could have cut the lead to six points with just over three minutes to play — but that shot failed to fall.
After that miss, Taylor Sowah made two free throws, Rosa converted a lay-up and Andrew Senuik’s backdoor cut resulted in two more points at the Hawks were back up by 15 and made enough free throws down the stretch to thwart Cortland. Senior forward Sowah contributed 13 points and 15 rebounds to the winning cause.
‘IT WAS REALLY disappointing for us, a real disappointing performance for us, just because we played so poorly,” said Spanbauer, who used 11 different players searching for the right combination.
“In our league you have to take care of the home court and we didn’t today,” he added, disappointed no one stepped up when called upon off the bench besides Hefele. “We lacked contributions and that has been a positive for us. It seemed everyone was bad on the same night, so hopefully there’s a silver lining in that. Hopefully we can retool and get off tilt and be ready to go on Friday.”
Cortland resumes conference play Friday when Oswego visits Corey Gym, tip-off at 5:30 p.m.