CORTLAND, N.Y. – Austin Grunder (Trumansburg/Charles O. Dickerson) made a career-high tying 13 field goals and finished with 32 points and 12 rebounds as the Cortland men's basketball team defeated visiting Oswego, 82-72.

 

Grunder scored 21 of his 32 points in the second half as Cortland (13-6, 7-5 SUNYAC) pulled away from a 35-34 halftime lead and held off numerous Oswego comeback bids over the final 10 minutes. He finished 13-for-19 from the floor, including 3-of-5 from the 3-point arc, and added three assists.

Eric Edwards (Binghamton) scored 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting and had a career-high five blocked shots. Brendan Fitzpatrick (Plainview/Plainview-Old Bethpage JFK) made both of his 3-point attempts and ended with 10 points and eight rebounds, while Ben Walters (Lockport/Starpoint) and Ryan Schmadel (Oriskany) scored seven points each.

 

Joe Sullivan, Brandan Gartland and Liam Sanborn combined for 59 points for Oswego (15-5, 9-4 SUNYAC). Sullivan scored 25 points on 9-of-15 shooting and grabbed five rebounds, Gartland tallied 20 points on 8-of-15 shooting with four 3-pointers, and Sanborn ended with 14 points and four assists.

 

Cortland shot 64 percent (18-for-28) from the field in the second half and finished the game at 58 percent. Oswego shot 35 percent in the first half but hit 52 percent of its shots in the second half to end at 43 percent.

 

Oswego led 19-8 less than seven minutes into the game, but Cortland fought back and took its first lead at 27-26 on an Edwards layup with 3:36 remaining in the half. Oswego led 34-32 after a Sanborn trey with 15 seconds left, but Grunder hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the Red Dragons their one-point halftime edge.

 

Grunder scored Cortland's first seven points of the second half as the Red Dragons took a 42-36 lead, and the lead grew to 10 with 16:03 left on layups from Jake DiSanto (Victor) and Edwards. Cortland's largest lead was 11 points on four occasions, the last at 58-47 after a Grunder layup with 11:06 left.

 

Oswego pushed back to within five points at 64-59 on a Gartland 3-pointer with 8:01 remaining. The Lakers were still within five points two other times in the half – at 73-68 on a Sullivan jumper with 3:24 mark and at 77-72 after Sanborn's layup with 1:32 remaining. Grunder helped Cortland answer on both of those occasions, hitting two free throws with 3:08 left to extend the lead to seven and nailing a 3-pointer at the 1:02 mark to put Cortland up 80-72. Edwards blocked a jumper with 49 seconds left and Fitzpatrick sealed the win with two free throws with 38 seconds remaining.

 

Cortland, currently fifth in the SUNYAC, travels to third-place Oneonta on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.