Hawks Slay Red Dragons; Agyemang with Game-Winner

NEW PALTZ, NY- Senior point guard Oppong Agyemang received the pass from sophomore Shereef Taylor with two seconds to go and drove to the hoop for the game-winning lay-up as time expired. The Hawks defeated the Cortland Red Dragons, 68-67 Tuesday night in the Hawk Center and swept their rival for the first time in school history. The Hawks improve to 10-8 overall and 6-6 in the SUNYAC.

Head coach Dagan Nelson said “This was an overall team effort and we gutted out a win against a very good team. We are very excited to play Brockport on Friday.”

Sophomore guard Harris Wichard had a game-high 25 points on 10-of-16 shooting, including 5-of-8 from behind the arc. Taylor finished with 14 points and five rebounds and freshman guard Nick Taldi and Agyemang each finished with seven points. Agyemang added four rebounds and a game-high 10 assists to his tallies.

Paul Oliver led the Red Dragons with 19 points on 8-of-12 shooting and Dustin Marshall added 16 points and eight rebounds, including 4-of-5 from behind the arc. Ben Nagle chipped in with 11 points on 5-of-6 shooting and nine rebounds. Cortland falls to 12-7 overall and 8-4 in the SUNYAC.

In the first half, the Red Dragons came out on a 15-2 run in the first six and half minutes. The Hawks would score five on a Daniel Olsen lay-up and a Wichard three-pointer from the corner. Jeremy Smith would give the Red Dragons an 11 points lead on his three-pointer from deep at the top of the key to stop the five point spurt by the Hawks. New Paltz continued to fight as the Hawks would cut the lead to four with a within a minute on back-to-back three-pointers by Wichard and Taldi. Cortland held strong and regained their double-digit lead with three minutes, 44 seconds remaining. The Hawks would finish the last two minutes, 50 seconds of the half on a 7-2 run to cut the lead to 37-29 at the break. Cortland outscored the Hawks 20-8 in the point and 12-0 off turnovers.

Wichard opened the second half with a lay-up, but Marshall answered back at the other end of the floor with a three-pointer just right of the top of the key. The Hawks stayed strong and battled back to cut the lead to six on an Olsen lay-up with 17 minutes, 18 seconds remaining. The Red Dragons built their lead back up to 10 with 13 minutes, 51 seconds to go, but the Hawks would not fold. After a Matt Devine three-pointer from the corner, the Hawks trailed by five with seven minutes, 43 seconds remaining. The Hawks continued with the momentum and cut the lead to one with seven minutes, 16 seconds on back-to-back lay-ups from Wichard and Taylor. Cortland went on an 8-2 run to build their lead back up to seven with five minutes, 20 seconds to go. Cortland had several chances to put away the Hawks, but failed due to 2-of-7 shooting from the free throw line down the stretch, which led to the game-winning lay-up by Agyemang.