For the second straight game, a member of The College at Brockport's women's basketball team scored a career-high in points, and on Tuesday night, sophomore Ellen Story's (Catskill, NY/Catskill) career game helped the Golden Eagles pick up their first two-game win streak of the 2010-11 season.
Story scored a career-high 19 points and grabbed seven rebounds, and The College at Brockport held on to defeat Fredonia 62-58 Tuesday night in a State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) game at Fredonia's Steele Hall.
Brockport (4-9 overall, 2-4 SUNYAC) moved into sixth place in the SUNYAC. The top eight teams in the conference advance into the SUNYAC postseason tournament.
“We were just really confident, we loved the feeling of winning we had against New Paltz, and we wanted to get that (winning) feeling back (tonight),” said Story, who's previous career high was 11 points against William Smith on Nov. 30, 2010.
“We weren't going to let anyone stop us from winning. … We feel very confident now, and we feel we can get two more wins this weekend.”
One game after junior Desiree Fauvelle (Newport, NY/West Canada Valley) sparked Brockport to a 74-67 home win over New Paltz, Tuesday night it was Story who chose the perfect time for her breakthrough game.
Story connected on 7 of her 14 shots from the field and scored six of her points during a pivotal 12-5 run to start the second half. Brockport, which trailed 29-28 at the break, got three layups from Story and junior Rachel Csakany (Schenectady, NY/Schenectady) and freshman Alex Leung (Merrick, NY/W.C. Mepham) hit layups on consecutive possessions as the Golden Eagles took a 40-34 lead.
It was the largest Brockport lead of the game, and that spurt caused Fredonia to call a timeout with 12:28 remaining.
Sophomore Sarah Alwardt (Rochester, NY/Greece Athena) snared an offensive rebound and hit the layup to reclaim the lead, 44-43 with 5:36 to play. Freshman Myranda Hogan (Corning, NY/Corning West) found Story for another basket and a 46-43.
Several possessions later, Fredonia buried a '3' to surge ahead, 48-47. Story then grabbed an offensive rebound and banked in a layup for the 49-48 lead before Fredonia answered back with another basket. Tied at 50, and with the shot clock winding down, Alwardt drove into the lane and hit a tough layup for a 52-50 edge.
Another Fredonia layup tied it with 1:32 remaining. On the ensuing possession, Leung was fouled driving to the basket and hit both ends of a one-and-one for a 54-52 lead with 1:04 to play. Leung hit two more free throws and Fredonia turned the ball over on its next possession. Fauvelle added four free throws and the Golden Eagles hit eight consecutive shots from the foul line to cement the win.
Alwardt finished with 11 points and a game-high nine rebounds, Fauvelle chipped in 10 points and three steals, Csakany had nine points and eight rebounds and Leung finished with eight points and four assists for Brockport.
The Golden Eagles return to action this weekend, taking on Oswego at 6 p.m. Friday night, and Cortland at 2 p.m. Saturday afternoon. Both games will take place inside Brockport's Jim and John Vlogianitis Gymnasium.
