Brockport Golden Eagles women’s basketball opened SUNYAC conference play against the Oneonta Red Dragons on Friday. Last season’s matchup did not go the Golden Eagles’ way as the Red Dragons swept the season series 2-0. This time around Brockport looked to make an example of the Red Dragons.
The first quarter saw Brockport come out of the gates lights-out with a Zoe Zutes three-pointer to set the tone. The Golden Eagles made every bucket look flawless shooting 66 percent from the field and 83 percent from beyond the arc to build a 26-7 lead after one.
The second quarter saw the Golden Eagles cool off from three as Brockport shot 1-8. The Red Dragons started to pick up steam making the game more competitive. But Brockport’s lead seemed to be too tall to cut down as Kelsey Morgans and Zutes took over the second quarter combining for 19 points in the first half to Oneonta’s 22. Stephanie Jean-Baptiste and Anna Lee had a strong half as well with Jean-Baptiste scoring eight points and Lee seven. The Golden Eagles held a strong lead going into intermission 39-22.
Coming out of halftime it became all Lee as she came out of the locker room firing. Lee put up six points on three consecutive possessions. Along with Jean-Baptistes’ eight points and Brockport’s shutdown defense that allowed nine points in the third quarter the Golden Eagles created more distance against the Red Dragons to make the score 53-31.
Going into the fourth quarter the Golden Eagles sat on a comfortable lead and let on more of the same as the Red Dragons could not stay out of foul trouble, tallying 12 fouls throughout the game. Thanks to Brockport’s bench scoring 20 points the Golden Eagles handed the Red Dragons their third loss of the season.
Brockport women’s basketball head coach Corinne Jones believes her women proved a point against the Red Dragons.
“It was a statement we wanted to let people know although we’re going to the Empire 8 we still have something to do in the SUNYAC so that was a great start,” said Jones.
With the win the Golden Eagles open conference play 1-0 and Lee believes they’ve earned some respect.
“I think we are showing people that Brockport is not a team that they can mess with and that they need to put respect on our name,” Lee said.
Zutes was a point short of her career-high but was not interested in talking about herself only what way the game was going.
“I just saw Brockport’s way, I think we came out of warmups with a lot of energy, and we locked up and I think it clearly showed on the court we came out with a bang in the first quarter, and we played our way,” Zutes said.
Brockport improves to 5-1 overall on the year with a big match-up against New Paltz (4-1) coming up next on Saturday, Dec. 2. Tip-off is scheduled for 2 p.m. against last season’s SUNYAC regular season champions.
