As the final buzzer goes off, SUNY Cortland’s women’s basketball senior Logan Streety leaves her team in a great standing being guided by upcoming juniors, especially key player Brooke Tillotson.
The Red Dragon’s ended their season with a record of 18-8, maintaining a lot of improvements since the beginning of the season.
Looking back to some key games of the 2023-2024 season, an important game to touch on is the game against Oswego on January 13th, and the game against New Paltz on February 25th.
Brooke Tillotson, Logan Streety, and head coach Colleen Ames point out the accomplishments that were made at each game and what stood out to them the most.
“Our team played especially well in the fourth quarter of our game against Oswego,” said Tillotson. “We won that game after being down by 7 with 3 minutes left of the last quarter.”
Head coach Colleen Ames also noted that against Oswego her team was able to come back to secure a win during the 4th quarter by scoring on 13 consecutive possessions in the final minutes of the game.
“One game that stood out to me for our team was our win against New Paltz,” said Streety. “We came with a lot of energy as the underdog and proved a lot of people wrong that day.”
Ames recalled the team didn’t play in a flashy style, and they held the opponent’s All American forward to only 10 points which was 9 points under what she normally averaged. The Red Dragon’s owe this to their SUNYAC Defensive Player of the Year, Brooke Tillotson.
Tillotson had some outstanding games this season, but she believes her personal best was the game against Plattsburg on December 1st.
Reflecting on her own performances during the season, Tillotson has one game that stands out to her where she remembers just about every play, knowing her performance that day was one of her best.
“I had 25 points, 5 3s and a lot of good defensive plays (against Plattsburg). That was our conference opener, so it was nice to start out with a bang,” Tillotson said.
Even though the season may be over, the team likes to joke that the season is never over, and they just have a season with games and a season without.
“Now that our game season is over, we have lift 3 times a week and we play pick up basketball 4 times a week, so free time doesn’t really exist in our world,” Tillotson says. “But it is nice to have a few extra hours to do homework and relax every night.”
Streety believes her personal best game was during their matchup against Fredonia on January 19th. She mentioned she was 11-14 from the field with 11 rebounds.
As a senior who played her last game for the Red Dragons on February 23rd, Streety plans to follow the team and the success that she knows they’re going to have for this upcoming season.
“Now that basketball season is over, I start up with the Women’s Tennis team for the spring portion of our season,” said Streety.
To prepare for this next upcoming season coach Ames is relying on the junior class next season to present to the new freshman leadership and poise.
“Next year, we will have no seniors so it’s vital that we learn from our mistakes and successes from this season to continue towards our goals as a team,” said Ames.
Each season it’s important for the team to not just measure success off wins. “If we can stay process oriented rather than outcome driven, it’s easier to measure our success as more than just wins,” said Ames.