Cortland Standard .net

By ALAN BUTLER
Sports Editor
Lamard Herron quickly recalled another time he had gone on a scoring spree like this one.
The SUNY Cortland senior admitted with a sly grin that the occasion had been while playing the Sega video game NBA 2K, however.
In the world of rugged reality that is SUNY Athletic Conference men’s basketball, Herron’s 21-point first half eruption was a bit more impressive as the Red Dragons came up with an eventual 71-59 home court win over Brockport on Tuesday night.
While Cortland was rolling to a 43-23 lead that was whittled down to 43-27 by the time halftime arrived, Herron was showing off a full array of offensive abilities — from soaring to tap in a missed teammate’s shot, to swishing pull-up jumpers from various court locales, to going a perfect 3-for-3 from 3-point long distance.
That sniping included leaving a Golden Eagles defender in the dust before stepping back to drop in a 3-pointer for the 41st Cortland point of the half that drew a chorus of ooohs and aaahs from the Corey Gymnasium crowd.
“Honestly, I was just taking what they were giving me,” said Herron, the 6-foot-1 team captain out of Westbury who came into the contest averaging 15.3 points per game. “They were looking for me to be aggressive in other ways, so I just read the defense and took the open shots and when I wasn’t open I gave it up.”
Herron finished with 25 points — four shy of 1,000 for a career that started with a freshman season at New Paltz before transferring to Cortland — as the Red Dragons improved to 7-4 in conference play and 14-4 overall. He also grabbed seven rebounds and handed out three assists during his 37-minute work load.
Just as vital were the 12 points and seven rebounds by freshman back-up forward Justin Prendergast, who did his best work in the second half especially after Brockport pulled to within 58-51 on a Mike Gallagher corner trey. Cortland out-scored Brockport 12-2 over the following six minutes, seven of those points scored from close range by the 6-foot-7 Prendergast.
Still, it was Herron’s 8-of-11 first half shooting that ignited Cortland, snapping a three-game Brockport winning streak in the process.
“THAT’S THE ONE thing we haven’t had, is a guy really getting us going by himself,” said Cortland coach Tom Spanbauer of Herron’s huge opening half. “We’ve been talking we need to get back to shooting the ball a little better on the arc, the way we’re capable of shooting it, and our numbers reflected that tonight.”
Cortland shot 55 percent in the first half, and made 9-of-17 treys by the finish. Blair Estarfaa was 3-of-8 from long range for all nine of his points.
There were other plusses for the Red Dragons.
The defense held down Brockport senior Patrick Modzelewski, who was in the top 10 in the conference in both scoring and rebounding. The 6-foot-6 forward made just 1-of-8 shots while scoring five points and only collected a pair of rebounds.
“Out guys did a really good job of paying attention and having discipline to the game plan, because that was a concerted effort that we really wanted to take him away,” said Coach Spanbauer of keeping Modzelewski under wraps.
Brockport (6-5 SUNYAC, 9-9 overall), which came into the game in a third place tie in the conference standings along with Cortland, got 12 points from center Daniel Aiello, 11 from guard Matthew Smith and 10 off the bench from Hamed Shamseldin including a couple of treys.
The backboards belonged to Cortland, too, with 16 of the Red Dragons’ 38 total coming off the offensive glass. Herron and Prendergast had seven boards apiece, while Grequan Carter had six and Carrel Joseph five.
“Our guys came after it. Our guys were hungry tonight,” said Spanbauer of Cortland’s offensive rebounding. “They won the 50-50 war, which was important. That was one of our goals, to win that 50-50- war whether the ball was up or down, and I think we won that war tonight.”
HERRON TOOK ONLY five shots in the second half, but Cortland responded to every Brockport challenge.
Estarfaa hit a pair of 3s in the early stages of the second half, with southpaw guard T.J. Hefele also coming off a screen to nail a 3-pointer. And Cortland did a good job finding Prendergast underneath, James Morales, Carter (twice) and Herron all providing passed that led to Prendergast points.
“We have our spurts,” said Herron. “It’s all about our mentality before the game. When we’re on, I think we’re the best team in the league. But in this league if you’re not bringing that attitude that day you’re going to be the worst team in the league.”
That’s how competitive things are in the SUNYAC, with Cortland’s next tests coming at Buffalo State Friday night and Fredonia Saturday afternoon.
“That was a really good effort,” said Spanbauer of beating Brockport. “I was looking at the standings, today was a day you could go from from being tied for third to seventh place. You could go from being in the tournament hosting to being out of the tournament with a loss depending on how the other game went.”
This win has Cortland a game out of first place, Plattsburgh and Oswego sharing first with 8-3 records. The loss leaves Brockport as one of four schools with 6-4 league marks.