BY MATT HANES
BROCKPORT, N.Y. – The Brockport Golden Eagles men’s basketball team hosted SUNY Geneseo in their annual We Back Pat night. After starting the first three minutes of the second half down 52-44, Brockport worked to force overtime and later claimed an 83-77 victory to extend their winning streak over Geneseo to six straight.
Geneseo came out on fire in the first four minutes of action, scoring 16 straight points before the Knights missed a shot. Jackson Casey fueled that flame with three straight 3-pointers alongside buckets from Josh Garelle and Justin Yearwood.
After finishing as low as 2-26 from beyond the arc in last week’s matchups, Ajani Flemming, Pharell Aybar and Camron Dyer nailed their shots to help the Golden Eagles fight back and tie it at 21-21 in the first eight minutes of action.
“We followed the gameplan even though they made three to four shots in a row. They struggle to shoot it, so we protected the paint. They eventually missed some shots, and we got out in transition a little bit which opened our offense. We attacked the paint.” Brockport head coach Joe Clarke said.
Another three from Flemming later with 2:36 left on the clock gave Brockport its fourth lead swing of the game. However, a three pointer from Geneseo’s Robert Pericolosi and a fastbreak layup from Trevor Hofer put the Golden Eagles down 42-40 at halftime.
Flemming finished the game with 15 points, connecting on five threes, a new career-high, including four in the first half. The freshman also grabbed two rebounds.
“It’s a relief,” Flemming said. “Five shots from three is normal. I feel like for me, my standard is set high from the team. My guys expect me to hit more than five shots a game, so the games where I have less than five is more so just not doing the job. Today is just getting the job done.”
Geneseo entered the second half on a 7-2 scoring run before Brockport coach Clarke called a crucial timeout to reset the team. After that timeout, Dyer and Omar White provided 11 points combined to help the Golden Eagles claw back into deficit.
White recorded 14 points on 7-for-9 shooting, also providing five rebounds, five assists and a team-high four blocks. Dyer stuffed the stat sheet with 11 points, seven rebounds, four assists, two steals and a block.
“I take pride in defense,” White said. “Defense is just something I always did, and it’s something you want to do. It’s not just something you can go out there and learn to do. So I take pride in it, and I know my defense can translate to offense and get my teammates fired up.”
After facing another lead change where the Knights took a 61-57 lead, White and the rest of the Golden Eagles turned defense into offense repeatedly. Brockport went on a 10-0 scoring run through five minutes to create a 67-61 lead with five minutes left to play.
Geneseo responded with a 11-3 scoring run of their own to make it 72-70. Senior forward Jacob Oka drained the final bucket of the second half to even the score and send the match to overtime.
Oka finished the game with a team-high 16 points, nine rebounds, two steals and two turnovers.
“Man, we love each other,” Oka said. “We didn’t come here and get this far just to lose. We got to OT, and we knew we were pulling out the win in front of our home crowd.”
Lose they did not. After a midrange pullup from White and an old fashioned three-point play from Dyer, the Golden Eagles maintained a lead that it would not relinquish in the final five minutes. Four-time Empire 8 Rookie of the Week Aybar drove in for a jumper in the paint to extend the lead to pair with two made free throws.
The freshman played a total of 43 minutes and 37 seconds of game time, only being subbed out for less than a minute and thirty seconds. With that much playing time, he finished with 13 points, a game-high seven assists and five rebounds.
“I was looking at that downstairs, that looks crazy,” Aybar said. “You know, I was tired, but I just got to push through. I know my team needed me, and so that’s what I did. I just pushed through.”
With the win, Brockport climbs to a 9-11 record including a 5-6 record in Empire 8 play, putting the Golden Eagles 7th in the conference standings. Geneseo falls to a 12-8 record with an 8-3 record in conference play, good for 5th in the Empire 8.
Brockport will be on the road for their next matchup, heading to Nazareth on Friday, Feb. 6 with tip-off scheduled at 7:30 p.m.
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