Cortland Standard .net

By ALAN BUTLER
Sports Editor
After suffering a 14-point basketball loss at Geneseo just a week ago, just how anxious were SUNY Cortland men to get another crack at the Knights?
“I’d rather have played them the next day after they beat us, so the one week between was pretty good,” said Red Dragons senior captain Lemard Herron of Tuesday night’s relatively quick rematch conducted in Cortland’s Corey Gymnasium.
Herron’s 19 points and seven assists certainly helped the Red Dragons earn the revenge they sought, Cortland coming up with a 43-point second half that handed Geneseo a 70-60 loss in this clash of SUNY Athletic Conference contenders.
“I liked it because it was really fresh,” said Coach Tom Spanbauer of facing Geneseo again as Cortland captured a third straight win — coming after a three-game losing skid — to improve to 5-3 in conference play and 11-3 overall.
“The adjustments we had to make, the guys understood why we were making them right away,” he added. “The positive thing that our guys did was view some things we needed to correct and apply it right into the game, and I’m not sure you have that if you have such a long carryover between games.”
Finally making some shots in the second half, along with a defensive effort that held Geneseo to 29 percent shooting over the decisive final 20 minutes, carried Cortland on this occasion.
After going scoreless and missing a handful of shots in his role of providing instant offense off the bench, junior sniper Blair Estarfaa came up with a trio of 3-pointers that helped the Red Dragons turn a 48-47 Geneseo lead into a 62-52 Cortland advantage with just over three minutes left to play. Mike Kelley, another valuable Cortland reserve of late, also contributed a corner trey to that decisive 15-4 run that favored the home side.
Geneseo pulled to within five points down the stretch, but Cortland veterans Herron and T.J. Hefele were a perfect 8-for-8 from the free throw line over the final 1:03 to provide the final winning margin.
GENESEO EXITED THE premises 4-3 in the SUNYAC and 8-6 overall despite a 20-point performance by senior Andy Drescher out of Syracuse CBA, who was 5-for-8 shooting 3-pointers. Conference rebounding and scoring leader Gordon Lyons, another senior among this bunch of experience Knights, finished with 17 points and grabbed a dozen boards in the loss.
“You have to beat them, because they’re not going to beat themselves,” said Spanbauer of the Knights, who also got 14 points from James McKenna. “And that’s what we did. We beat them.”
Not that it was easy, even after getting off to a 13-5 lead over the opening six minutes in a spurt started by center Matt McGowan’s lay-up off Herron’s first assist and a Kelly 3-point swish launched from the right wing. Geneseo came back to pull even at 26-26 on a Drescher three-point play with 3:28 left in the opening half.
The Knights out-scored Cortland 11-1 over the final four-plus minutes to go into halftime ahead 32-27.
The Cortland defense that made things hard on the visitors the rest of the way.
“I think we were just more physical and tougher. We kind of let them set the tone (last week). We set our tone this day,” said Herron of the difference between the two games with Geneseo. “Our defense seemed to set the tone. We just kept going on defense and it carried over, like everyone’s confidence just rolled over.”
Geneseo made just 8-of-28 shots in the second half, though Drescher did hit three times from beyond the 3-point arc.
“I thought the defense set the tone for us in the second half,” said Spanbauer. “We just disrupted them I thought the whole game, but especially in the second half. We had them pushed out a little further than they wanted to be and the by-product of that was their shooting percentage.”
WHILE HERRON FINISHED 7-of-13 shooting from the field, he was the lone Cortland player scoring in double figures. After Estarfaa’s nine points, Starters Hefele, McGowan and point guard Shayne Martinez — along with freshman back-up center Justin Predergast — all contributed seven points.
Cortland’s bench out-scored Geneseo’s bench 26-2, while the Red Dragons picked up 13 assists on 23 baskets to create another positive for Coach Spanbauer.
“We still have a lot of young guys who are playing and contributing, and they’re understanding you have to be tough to play in this league,” said Spanbauer, who feels his players are growing accustomed to their roles on this team. “Every game for us is a grow-up game. This is another grow-up step forward for us.”
After a non-league trip to Elmira on Saturday, Cortland still has 10 more conference contests in the regular season.
“Even with the losses, we know we are a good team so it just keeps us level-headed and we want to keep it moving,” said Herron of this current three-game win streak.