CORTLAND, N.Y. – Tournament MVP Brianna Fitzgerald scored 17 points, including the tiebreaking layup with 1:30 remaining. and second-seeded New Paltz edged top-seeded host Cortland, 66-63, in the championship game of the 2022 SUNYAC Women's Basketball tournament.
New Paltz (20-6) claimed its third straight league crown (2019, 2020, 2022) and earned an automatic berth into the NCAA Division III tournament. Cortland (21-5), the SUNYAC regular-season champion, finished as tournament runner-up for the second straight postseason. Cortland will hope to earn one of 20 at-large berths into the 64-team NCAA field; the selections will be announced Monday at 2:30 p.m. on NCAA.com.
Fitzgerald finished with seven rebounds and three assists in addition to her 17 points. She was joined on the all-tournament team by teammates Lexi Van Vorst and Maddie Gillis, Cortland's
Casey Travers (Manorville/Eastport-South Manor) and
Corinne Miedreich (Pearl River), and Oneonta's Olivia Dobrovosky.
Van Vorst led New Paltz with 19 points and Gillis finished with 12 points and nine rebounds. Miedreich led three Cortland double-figure scorers with 17 points. Travers totaled 14 points, five assists and five rebounds and
Sarah Tully (East Aurora) finished with 10 points.
Maggie Malone (Cornwall) led the Red Dragons with seven rebounds.
The game featured 11 ties and seven lead changes. New Paltz held an early 18-11 lead with 2:52 remaining in the first quarter, but Cortland got back to within 18-17 by the period break, and from that point neither team led by more than five points.
Cortland led 32-31 at halftime and led or was tied for most of the third quarter. New Paltz went up 51-50 on an Abby Korzekwinski layup with 1:22 left, but Cortland ended the period with a long Tully 3-pointer at the buzzer and led 53-51 entering the fourth.
In the fourth, the game was tied four times and neither team held more than a three-point advantage. Cortland led 59-58 on a
Nyia Longford (Medford/Longwood) layup with 6:11 left, but Gillis hit a trey at the 5:23 mark to put the Hawks up by two. Two minutes later, Longford tied the game with a putback layup, only for Fitzgerald to give New Paltz the lead back on a layup with 2:49 left.
Longford responded one more time as her layup with 2:36 left knotted the game at 63-63. The teams each missed shots on their next possessions before Fitzgerald hit the basket to put New Paltz up for good. Cortland turned the ball over at the 1:02 mark and New Paltz missed a jumper with 33 seconds left. Cortland had two chances to tie the game but missed a driving layup and a putback with less than 20 seconds left.
Cortland committed three fouls to put New Paltz in the bonus and Gillis hit the second of two free throws with 11 seconds remaining to make it a three-point lead. Cortland called timeout and advanced the ball, but the Red Dragons missed a layup with three seconds left.
