Before The College at Brockport's women's basketball game against New Paltz, head coach Nicole Beauregard showed the Golden Eagles an inspirational film clip about never giving up, and fighting hard, inch by inch, doing whatever it takes to earn a victory.

 

That message resonated well with junior Desiree Fauvelle (Newport, NY/West Canada Valley) and the rest of the Golden Eagles.

 

Fauvelle scored a career-high 22 points, connecting on 7 of 13 shots from the floor, and hitting 4 of her 6 three-pointers, and Brockport snapped an offensive slump with a 74-67 home win over State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) rival New Paltz Saturday afternoon inside Brockport's Jim and John Vlogianitis Gymnasium.

 

A day after being held to just 38 points in a loss to Oneonta, Brockport (3-9 overall, 1-4 SUNYAC) nearly matched that total at halftime, leading the Hawks (7-7, 5-2 SUNYAC) 36-34.

 

Fauvelle scored 11 first-half points and added 13 in the second half and freshman Alex Leung (Merrick, NY/WC Mepham) added 10 of her career-high 13 points in the second half. Brockport used a 16-3 run bridging both halves to both knock off New Paltz, which entered the game in third place in the SUNYAC standings. Brockport picked up its first SUNYAC win of the season.

 

 "It felt really good (shooting the ball) tonight. I felt really confident in my shots, my teammates were finding me when I was open and we moved the ball well," said Fauvelle, whose previous high at Brockport was 13 points against New Jersey City University, Dec. 11, 2010.

 

"To get a home win feels awesome, it feels great! This will definitely lift our spirits and it will give us the confidence to get another SUNYAC win."

 

Junior Rachel Csakany (Schenectady, NY/Schenectady) grabbed a game-high 13 rebounds, including five on the offensive glass, and sophomore Sarah Alwardt (Rochester, NY/Greece Athena) added nine points and eight rebounds for Brockport. The Golden Eagles finished 24 for 50 from the field (50 percent), by far Brockport's best shooting display of the year.

 

Leung, Alwardt and sophomore Ellen Story (Catskill, NY/Catskill) each had three steals apiece for the Golden Eagles.

 

"I just told these girls to keep their heads up. We tried to change things up, showed a motivational clip before the game, and we put some motivational quotes around the locker room," said Beauregard, Brockport's third-year head coach.

 

"I just told them to believe in themselves. We were just emotionally beat up from losing so many games in a row that we started to doubt ourselves and each other. I told them to stick together and we'll get one (a win), and once we get one, we'll get that confidence back."

 

Leading 36-34 at halftime, Brockport opened the second half with nine straight points as Story scored five points, Leung added a jumper and Fauvelle added a fast-break layup to extend the lead to 45-34.

 

New Paltz pulled within 48-44 before Fauvelle hit back-to-back layups. Junior Liz Unger (Hamilton, NY/Hamilton) chipped in two of her four points and Fauvelle drained her fourth and final '3' to extend the lead to nine, 57-48 with 10:52 remaining.

 

Brockport has now won 11 of the last 14 games in the rivalry against New Paltz.