Cortland and Plattsburgh advance to SUNYAC men's lacrosse finals
CORTLAND, NY - In men's lacrosse semifinal action in Cortland and Plattsburgh, the Red Dragons and the Cardinals won their respective games. Top seeded Cortland defeated fourth seeded Oswego in a hard fought game by a score of 13-10. Second seeded Plattsburgh prevailed in their game against third seeded Brockport in a close game by a score of 6-4. Cortland will host the title game Saturday at 4 pm.
In Cortland's game, senior Thomas McNaney and graduate student Devin Phelps led the Red Dragons and scored three goals. Senior goalie Joe Scalise kept Cortland in the lead throughout the game once the Red Dragons pulled ahead. He turned aside six shots and collected two ground balls. For Oswego, junior Bobby Emerson led the Lakers with four goals and one assist. Sophomore Kyle Bacon also contributed to the offense with three goals. The Lakers came close to catching the Red Dragons throughout the game, but the Red Dragons ended up holding on. The win also handed head coach Steve Beville his 200 career victory on the Cortland sideline.
In Plattsburgh, it was a defensive battle throughout the entire game. In the opening quarter, neither side could find the back of the net through the first 15 minutes. Brockport shut down the Cardinals offense as they could only register two shots on five attempts. The defensive battle continued in the second until Brockport suffered a goal late, when Plattsburgh converted on a face-break attempt to take a 1-0 lead heading into halftime. In the third was when the Cardinals began to pull away. The Golden Eagles did fight back and score three goals late in the third. In the last quarter, Plattsburgh's Kevin Murphy scored an important goal with 12:55 left, and then eventually Billy Moller secured the win for the Cardinals with seven seconds left.
