ONEONTA, NY – The Hartwick men's basketball team was run over by city rival SUNY Oneonta on Tuesday night, as the home Red Dragons pulled away in the middle of the first half and never looked back en route to a 105-76 win. The game was the first of the year for Oneonta, as they improve to 1-0. The Hawks are still looking for their first win, at 0-2.
After Nick Eiler's (Highland Mills, NY/Saddle River Day) jumper gave the Hawks a 2-0 lead, the Red Dragons went right at their guests in front of an electric crowd, scoring the next seven and eventually taking a 12-5 lead. 'Wick fought back, however, as a Steven White (Hingham, MA/Hingham) three followed by Cooper Francis' (Lynbrook, NY/Chaminade) three-point play cut the deficit to one. The Hawks would take the lead on a Liam Drennan (Oyster Bay, NY/Chaminade) lay-up, and Kevin Felasco's (Liverpool, NY/Cicero-North Syracuse) trey put the scoreboard at 16-12 in favor of Hartwick. From there, however, it was just about all Red Dragons.
Down 20-19, they scored the next nine points for an eight-point advantage. After an Eiler three, Frankie Williams went his own personal six-point run to drag the Oneonta lead out to 34-23 with 7:15 remaining in the half. White scored seven more points on a three and two jumpers over the rest of the half, but the Red Dragons simply overwhelmed the Hawks, culminating in a Williams trey with a couple seconds remaining to beat the buzzer. He had 20 points at the break, and Oneonta was out in front, 58-35.
The second half was more of the same, as the Red Dragons remained the better team throughout. The teams traded buckets early before 'Wick made it an 18-point game, but the Red Dragons were fairly quickly able to expand that back out to 20-plus. They would use a 12-0 run over three-plus minutes midway through to balloon their lead to 33 at 87-54, well and truly putting the game away as both coaches emptied the bench down the stretch.
White led the Hawks with 18 points on 7-of-14 shooting, including a trio of three pointers. Drennan had 13 points (including 3-of-5 from deep), and Francis put in 12 points, grabbed five rebounds, and had a game-high five assists.
Oneonta was white-hot from the field, as they shot 63.6%, including 55.6% from deep. 'Wick was at 39.7% from the field and 33.3% from three. The Red Dragons had a huge rebounding advantage, at 45-23, and dominated in the paint, 56-24.
'Wick gets back to it on Saturday, when SUNY Delhi travels up to Lambros Arena for a 7:30 p.m. tip-off.
Make sure to catch the latest news on all your favorite Hartwick Hawks teams by following @HawkTalk on Twitter, @hartwickhawks on Instagram, and by liking 'Hartwick Hawks' on Facebook.