Cardinals fall in hard-fought game

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February 22, 2012

Anonymous Press-Republican The Press Republican Wed Feb 22, 2012, 02:23 AM EST

CORTLAND — The Plattsburgh State men's basketball team was bounced out of the SUNY Athletic Conference playoffs Tuesday, losing 75-60 to Cortland in quarterfinal action.

Jesse Winter led the Red Dragons (20-6, 14-4) with 20 points on 7-for-13 shooting. Jeremy Smith backed Winter up with 18 points. Both players were 3-for-6 from beyond the arc. Cortland moves on to play Geneseo in the semifinal round Friday in Oswego.

The seventh-seeded Cardinals finish the season with an overall record of 8-18 and a conference record of 6-12.

Senior Ketema Brooks led the Cardinals in his final game with a season-high 14 points and eight rebounds. John Perez scored 10 points on 5-of-9 shooting, while Shavar Fields and Mike Mitchell both recorded eight points.

Plattsburgh coach Tom Curle said free throws proved to be a big factor in the loss.

The Cardinals went 6-for-6 from the stripe in the first have but converted just 2-of-9 in the second.

Cortland, on the other hand, made 16-of-20.

"It's a close game and you start missing the front ends of one-and-ones and all of a sudden leads go from three to six, six to eight, eight to 11. Now the whole complexion of the game changes."

A hotly contested first half saw four lead changes and resulted in a 32-32 half time score line.

Reggie Williams scored the first bucket of the second half on a layup to give the Cardinals a two-point lead, but the Red Dragons would hit back through a Brian Manning 3-pointer.

The Manning shot would give the Red Dragons a lead that they would keep for the rest of the game.

Both teams traded blows as the clock wound down and the Red Dragons could not get open up a considerable lead. Jordan Moody cut through for a layup and drilled the point after attempt to bring the Cardinals within two points with 7:10 left on the clock.

The Red Dragons responded with an 8-0 run to push the lead to double digits. In that span, the Cardinals turned the ball over three times and missed a field goal and two free throws.

Brooks hit a triple to pull within eight, but Nick Sutedjo responded with a 3-pointer of his own with 1:33 left.

The loss marks the last game for Cardinal seniors Brooks, Junghoon Roh and Josh Bruno.

Brooks recorded 91 assists this season, making him the all-time program leader in the category with 381 career assists.

"Ketema really competed, really set a tone for us," Curle said. "I really felt like he gave us the mentality that we can win this game and showed some real strong leadership."

Bruno won two SUNYAC Championships with the Cardinals, while both Brooks and Roh won one championship.

"I told them despite our record we're really close to being good, but it takes a lot of work," Curle said. "If you don't work real hard starting next Monday all the way up until next October, it's going to be tough to make up that deficit. We have a lot of work to get stronger and fundamentally sound."

—

Cortland 75, Plattsburgh State 60

Plattsburgh State (60)

Brooks 5-2-14, Perez 5-0-10, Williams 1-1-3, Fields 4-0-8, Roh 3-0-7, Mitchell 3-0-8, McIntosh 1-4-7, Moody 1-0-3, Baker 0-0-0, Hodgson 0-0-0, Bruno 0-0-0. Totals: 23-8-60.

Cortland (75)

Smith 5-3-18, Winter 7-3-20, Kearney 0-0-0, Hefele 3-0-6, Sternkopf 0-1-1, Manning 4-2-12, Spendjian 1-0-2, Sutedjo 1-4-7, McMahon 4-1-9. Totals: 25-16-75.

3-point goals: Plattsburgh (6) Brooks 2, Mitchell 2, Roh, McIntosh. Cortland (9) Smith 3, Winter 3, Manning, Sutedjo.

Halftime: Tie, 32-32.