New Paltz Women’s Basketball Advances to SUNYAC Championship in 39-38 Thriller over Plattsburgh

New Paltz Sports Information Department

PHOTOS

New Paltz, NY — All the stakes in a win-or-go-home SUNYAC Semifinal came down to one tenth of a second Friday night between the No. 1 seed State University of New York New Paltz and No. 4 seed Plattsburgh.
 
After Hawks senior Karly Wittenbauer (8 points, 11 rebounds) hit two go ahead free throws with .1 seconds to spare, the Cardinals drew up one last play on their sideline. They used their size and lofted a pass toward the hoop in the direction of 5'8 guard Kayla Johannesen who rose up to get her hands on the ball and directed a shot toward the basket that banked in as time expired. Plattsburgh celebrated, seemingly knocking off the No. 22 nationally ranked Hawks but after review, the attempt was waved off in a tight referral and SUNY New Paltz solidified a 39-38 win to survive and advance onto the championship round Saturday.
 
"We wanted to surround the paint, and we let that kid get around to the backside," said SUNY New Paltz coach Jamie Seward. "But you know .1 second, you don't really have time to do anything, so I was pretty sure the ball was in her hand and just wanted to make sure the officials took a look to see if she tipped that ball and that ball came into her two hands so, fortunately, this year [we had] replay, because last year that wasn't a thing. Sometimes better to be lucky than good and at the end of the day we'll be playing tomorrow."
 
In a dramatic end, the lead up was a slow scoring affair between both sides. The Hawks kept the Cardinals to 14 made baskets on 25.5 percent shooting in the game, while Plattsburgh held SUNY New Paltz to a season-low 21.7 percent (15-69) from the field and 11.5 percent (3-26) from 3-point range as the hosts struggled against the Cardinals zone defense throughout the game.
 
"First, credit to Plattsburgh. They played their butts off and had a great game plan, and we had no answers with what they were doing for us defensively," Seward said. "It didn't surprise us at all, but we put a bad plan together and we really struggled getting good shots and got a little tentative once we did struggle, but we were able to make enough plays there in the third quarter and we're fortunate to get one more point than them and that's the most important thing is that we're playing tomorrow."
 
Hannah Vanderzee (5 points, 7 rebounds) connected on one of the Hawks' three made 3-pointers early in the first quarter, which gave SUNY New Paltz its first lead of the game with Brianna Fitzgerald (game-high 13 points, 14 rebounds) capping the scoring from both sides in the opening period with a lay in the paint that brought the score to 5-4 entering the second.
 
The two sides were tied at 9- and 11-all with Fitzgerald creating a slight three-point margin, following a steal from Summer Perry that led to a good basket from Fitzgerald on a find by Vanderzee with 3:35 to go, but Cardinals' Julia Greek (team-leading 12 points) was the last to score in the half, trimming the difference to 16-15 at the break. The two teams combined for 13 made buckets and 23 turnovers in a defensive battle.
 
"Like coach said, it was no surprise that they were going to pack the paint and play a zone," Fitzgerald said. "It was definitely difficult for us to get a flow. We've been playing really well together all season, just moving the ball, passing, cutting to each other against man or zone, but we were definitely tentative."

Greek tallied the first points of the second half to push the Cardinals in front by one, but SUNY New Paltz started building some momentum in the third with Fitzgerald getting inside for a trip to the line, followed by a layup to re-build a two-point advantage midway through the quarter. Kayden Cornell (6 points, 6 rebounds) hit one of her two 3's two minutes later in front of the Hawks' bench, which ignited the white-out Hawk Center gymnasium and the team rode the wave and started stacking points to create a nine-point cushion.
 
Wittenbauer added onto the run with a put-back underneath, before Sierra Carter picked a pass and laid in two a minute later. Wittenbauer capped the stretch on a nice sequence. Vanderzee started the play on a steal, finding Fitzgerald inside who dished a nifty pass on a back cut from Wittenbauer who laid in two more to extend the lead, 28-19.
 
Plattsburgh stayed in and scored a quick four points, all from Desiree Dubois, but Cornell connected again from 3-point range to bring the advantage to eight entering the fourth.
 
The Hawks built an advantage to as many as 10 in the opening seconds of the fourth, but the Cardinals stayed within themselves and continued to make every shot difficult for SUNY New Paltz. In turn, the visitors started finding success inside. Kaelyn Morgan earned a trip to the line before Greek added two in the paint to get the margin down to six with eight minutes to go. Greek then cut inside once again and earned a trip to the foul line where she made both before Rosie Sculco capped the run on three-straight points with four minutes to go to bring the score to 33-32 Hawks.
 
Fitzgerald finally broke up the five-minute scoring drought for her side, scoring two from the paint. She then got her hands in the passing lane to force a turnover on a steal, leading to a nice driving layup from Sierra Carter to fatten the cushion to five with just less than three minutes left. It was the last basket of the game for the Hawks who needed the efforts of Wittenabauer on the foul line to get back into the game.
 
"In the second half, we were trying to get more plays of me getting downhill, but it was still tough because they were still in that zone," Fitzgerald continued. "We didn't really get them to move enough. Something that we've been stressing for weeks against a zone is attack and move the ball fast and we still couldn't really crack the code on how to get that done tonight, but as coach said, this is a survive and advance. Credit to Plattsburgh. They really had a better game plan defensively and they got us to take shots that they wanted us to take."
  
Greek officially re-took the lead for Plattsburgh, as she weaved to the hoop and smoothly finished at the rim to push the score to 38-37 with 19.8 seconds left. After SUNY New Paltz advanced the ball forward, Seward called a timeout to draw up a sideline play. Carter found the ball in her hands as the clock winded down, worked baseline and put up a jumper that careened off the front of the rim. Wittenbauer wrestled the offensive board from the ground and the hosts managed to get a timeout called for one last opportunity with 1.9 seconds left. Seward drew up another play for underneath and Vanderzee found Wittenbauer inside the paint who got hit on a turn-around jumper, resulting in two foul shots with .1 seconds left for a chance to swish the go-ahead points.
 
"We were trying to do something off of what we had been doing to get the ball into a different spot and our spacing wasn't good, and we ended up kind of getting lucky that we got the ball back on the floor and get the timeout," explained Seward. "The baseline play was what we were looking for. It wasn't clean, straight to the basket but they really hugged up on Bri hard, and we were able to get the ball to Karly and get a good scoring opportunity and fortunately she made her free throws and got fouled. Buried them both."
 
Wittenbauer calmly stepped to the foul line with nothing in mind, but to make a routine free throw. "Make one, and then make another one," she said afterward.
 
Cooly, she swished the game-tying free throw, before netting the game-winning foul shot to push the score to 39-38 Hawks.
 
"In high school, it was a similar situation. We were down two, end of game and I missed the first one and the game was over. I think I just learned from then, like I shoot free throws every day. I've played basketball for 18 years; I know how to shoot a free throw," she said. "It's not, 'this is for our season,' it's 'this is one free throw. Make one free throw and then make another free throw after. That's your job.' It's not anything more than that or anything less than that. It's the same thing we've done all year."
  
The game was yet over, though, as a resilient Cardinals team had belief. They took one look at what SUNY New Paltz put out defensively before burning a last timeout to draw up another play. Greek took the inbound and threw a perfectly lobbed pass toward the back block to Johannesen who got her hands on the ball for a chance to pull the upset that was as close as a final shot could come down to.
 
Instead, after a long deliberation, the 39-38 outcome finalized, setting the Hawks up for a re-match against No. 2 seed Cortland Saturday who defeated them last season for the SUNYAC title.
 
The two teams have faced each other in the championship round four times in the last five years and they'll do so one last time Saturday in the Hawk Center. Tip-of is scheduled for 4 p.m.

Post-Game Press Confrence
SUNY New Paltz: featuring coach Jamie Seward, Brianna Fitzgerald & Karly Wittenbauer



Post-Game Press Conference
Plattsburgh: featuring coach Ben Sarraf & Julia Greek