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By COURTNEY LEWIS
PLATTSBURGH — Plattsburgh State had its second near-miss of the weekend Saturday.
The Cardinals heated up from long range and received key contributions from the bench, but Buffalo State erased a 5-point deficit late in the game and held on for a 72-67 win at Memorial Hall.
"We had some people step up and do good things for us. We just don't know how to win these kinds of games," Plattsburgh State coach Cheryl Cole said. "That's been our problem. We get ourselves in games, and we haven't been able to finish."
The Cardinals (2-17, 0-13 SUNYAC) held a halftime lead for the first time since Dec. 1, but they couldn't turn that into their first win since then. The loss, their 14th straight, mathematically eliminated them from the SUNY Athletic Conference playoffs — they're five games behind the eighth-place Bengals with five games left.
Buffalo State's Staci McElroy had 15 points in the second half to finish with 20, and she pulled down a game-high 12 rebounds. Dee Layne also had a double-double with 12 points and 10 boards, and Jessica Clark scored 16.
Lindsey Larivee came off the bench to pace Plattsburgh State with 17 points.
The Bengals (10-10, 5-8) finished with 46 rebounds — 11 more than the Cardinals.
"We got beat on the boards, which was the difference," Cole said. "They're more aggressive, and they're a little bigger. We needed to put a body on somebody. And we couldn't get all five players to do that every defensive possession.
"They don't make a lot of first shots, but they make a lot of second shots. And in my mind, that was the game."
The teams combined for 15 3-pointers. Plattsburgh State shot 50 percent from downtown in the first half and finished at 44.4 percent.
Kerri Salisbury hit a triple to tie the game in the middle of the second half. Larivee sank another to give Plattsburgh State a 55-54 edge with about seven minutes left and then banked in her fifth of the game for a 3-point lead at 5:50.
Molly Harte hit two free throws to give Plattsburgh State its biggest advantage of the half, 61-56, with about 5:30 left.
Buffalo State responded with two triples sandwiched around McElroy's fast-break bucket off a turnover to pull ahead 64-61 with just under three to go. The Bengals never trailed again.
Plattsburgh State was also right there until the very end on Friday, when it lost to Fredonia by two.
Larivee made a layup in transition late in the first half to bring the Cardinals within a point, and then she swished a halfcourt heave at the buzzer to give them a 31-29 halftime lead.
She was 5-for-9 from behind the arc and spent time at point guard Saturday because starter Catherine Cassidy was limited by an elbow injury suffered in the first half.
"The thing I was most proud of was, yeah, she shot well and that was awesome, but she took leadership on the floor," Cole said. "She's only a freshman, and we haven't used her a whole lot at the point. But she wanted the ball, and she got us into our offense.
"She was a leader on the floor in the second half."
Cole said she was also pleased with freshman Dana Nucaro, who played 15 minutes and had five points and five rebounds.
Leading scorer Taylor Amarando spent a good chunk of the second half sitting at the end of the Plattsburgh State bench. She didn't score after halftime and totaled seven points.
"We didn't get her the ball enough, and she probably didn't work hard enough," Cole said. "She wasn't rebounding. To be honest, Casey (Clark) and Dana were working harder. They deserved minutes."
Stephanie McCoy scored 11 for the Cardinals, and Salisbury added nine. Harte led the team with nine rebounds.
Buffalo State 72,
Plattsburgh State 67
Buffalo State (72)
Sebuharara 2-2-6, Layne 6-0-12, Ritch 2-2-8, Clark 5-4-16, McElroy 8-2-20, Baker 0-0-0, Reckley 0-0-0, Derby 2-0-5, Debnam 0-0-0, Bowman 1-0-2, Edwards 1-1-3, Kinney 0-0-0. Totals: 22-11-72.
Plattsburgh State (67)
Harte 1-4-6, Amarando 1-5-7, Salisbury 4-0-9, Cassidy 1-1-4, McCoy 4-3-11, Larivee 6-0-17, O'Keefe 1-0-3, Nucaro 1-3-5, Clark 1-3-5. Totals: 20-19-67.
3-point goals: Buffalo State (7), Ritch 2, Clark 2, McElroy 2, Derby. Plattsburgh State (8), Larivee 5, Salisbury, Cassidy, O'Keefe.
Halftime: Plattsburgh State 31-29.
Attendance: 214.
E-mail Courtney Lewis at: clewis@pressrepublican.com
