FREDONIA, N.Y. – Sophomore Brian Manning (Elmira/Elmira Southside) scored a career-high 19 points as Cortland concluded its regular season schedule with a 56-50 victory at Fredonia.
The victory sets up a rematch between the Red Dragons and the Blue Devils in the SUNYAC tournament quarterfinals in Cortland Tuesday at 8 p.m. Cortland finished 11-7 in league play (15-10 overall) and tied Brockport for third place. Cortland will be the third seed by virtue of a season sweep over Brockport. Fredonia is 11-13 overall and tied fifth place with Buffalo State at 9-9 in the conference. Fredonia is the sixth seed after losing a tiebreaker to the Bengals.
Manning made 3-of-7 three-pointers and 6-of-13 shots overall. Freshman Jesse Winter (Rockville Centre/South Side) made 3-of-5 shots from behind the arc and finished with 12 points and junior Dustin Marshall (Newfield) had 10 points and three assists. Senior Ben Nagle (Rochester/Aquinas Institute) led Cortland with seven rebounds.
Joseph Monahan (Floral Park/Holy Cross) led Fredonia with 10 points and four assists off the bench. Amir Billups (Buffalo/Starpoint) scored nine points and Julius Bryant (Buffalo/Hutch Tech) recorded 10 rebounds and three steals.
Cortland led by as many as 12 points in the first half and went into the locker room at halftime up 30-21. The Red Dragons’ lead grew to 13 points at 40-27 on a pair of Marshall free throws with 13:08 left in the game.
Fredonia went on an 11-1 run over the next five-plus minutes and trailed 41-38 with 7:30 remaining. Cortland responded with a 9-1 run featuring five points by Manning and four from Marshall and held a 50-39 advantage with 2:12 left.
The hosts make a final surge when Sean Donahue (Olean) and Billups buried three-pointers to cut the deficit to five. Manning put down two foul shots at the 52-second mark, but another Billups trey with 47 seconds on the clock reduced Cortland’s lead to four.
Manning, however, hit two more foul shots with 25 seconds left and, following a Fredonia miss, Marshall made two charity tosses with 13 seconds remaining to secure the victory.
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