{"id":7397,"date":"2025-02-22T08:40:14","date_gmt":"2025-02-22T13:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/?p=7397"},"modified":"2025-02-24T15:32:58","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T20:32:58","slug":"cortland-womens-basketball-remains-on-top-of-sunyac-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/2025\/02\/22\/cortland-womens-basketball-remains-on-top-of-sunyac-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortland Women’s Basketball Remains On Top of SUNYAC Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cortland Stays in SUNYAC Lead After Dominant Weekend Performance<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

CORTLAND, NY- <\/strong>The Red Dragons women\u2019s basketball team defeated visiting Oneonta and New Paltz in commanding fashion in this weekend\u2019s competition.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Friday night, Cortland clinched their eighth straight victory with a 70-38 win over Oneonta in the battle of the Red Dragons.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cortland\u2019s defense proved to be a problem as they limited Oneonta to 10 first-half points.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was awesome to see us come out and play aggressive basketball from the start,\u201d said Haley Potenza, a junior guard. \u201cWe played great defense out there today while still being able to make plays on offense.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cortland led 12-7 at the end of the first quarter and then outscored Oneonta 19-3 in the second quarter to put the game away by halftime.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The visiting Dragons were able to get as close as 15 points in the early minutes of the fourth quarter before Cortland went on a 15-2 run to secure the win.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some key players of the game include Joleen Lusk, who led Cortland with 13 points and six rebounds. She made 6-of-10 shots from the floor and ignited the offensive run that her team went on in the fourth quarter.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sam Dembinsky came off the bench and capitalized with 10 points in 13 minutes. She made all of her shots including two from 3-point range.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have everyone stepping up,\u201d said junior guard Bella Zingoni. \u201cIt\u2019s a great time being able to cheer on multiple teammates at once. Watching Sam come in and hit all her shots just shows we can rely on underclassmen and upperclassmen to perform when we need.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Saturday afternoon, the Red Dragons made a statement by defeating New Paltz in a thrilling battle between SUNYAC\u2019s top two teams.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The game remained close although Cortland did not trail after taking an 8-6 lead at the end of the first quarter. The Dragons outlasted the Hawks to walk away with 61-56 victory.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cortland was led by the hot hand of sophomore guard Jackie Funk.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funk played a great three quarters before erupting into a lights-out performance in the fourth. She recorded a career-high 21 points, with 14 of those points coming in the fourth quarter.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She hit 7-of-11 shots, including 4-of-6 from 3-point range. Funk hit three clutch 3-pointers in the last six minutes to solidify the Cortland win.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funk\u2019s performance was electric. She also recorded five rebounds and two steals.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis was one of the most entertaining basketball games I\u2019ve seen here,\u201d said Elijah Johnson, Cortland basketball fan. \u201cJackie\u2019s performance gave them so much momentum. The crowd was into it and the whole gym was ready for her to hit those threes at the end.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the attention was on Funk, other players were able to contribute. Joleen Lusk was able to follow up her notable performance on Friday with another impressive showing on Saturday.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She recorded her fifth double-double of the season with 10 points and 11 rebounds. She also finished with three assists and two blocks.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The battle between the Dragons and the Hawks was a fast-paced, high intensity game. Corey Gymnasium gave the Dragons a home-court advantage as the fans celebrated the team\u2019s success.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This win propelled Cortland to reach the 20-win mark for the fourth time in the last five seasons.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dragons can clinch the SUNYAC regular-season title along with the top seed in the conference tournament with a win at Oswego or Canton next weekend.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cortland Stays in SUNYAC Lead After Dominant Weekend Performance  CORTLAND, NY- The Red Dragons women\u2019s basketball team defeated visiting Oneonta and New Paltz in commanding fashion in this weekend\u2019s competition.   On Friday night, Cortland clinched their eighth straight victory with a 70-38 win over Oneonta in the battle of the Red Dragons.   Cortland\u2019s defense […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":435,"featured_media":7400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-featured-news-article","category-sports","entry"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2025\/02\/20240127-BL-WomensBasketballV.Lakers-39-of-54-2-scaled-e1740072593674.jpeg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2025\/02\/20240127-BL-WomensBasketballV.Lakers-39-of-54-2-scaled-e1740072593674.jpeg","author_info":{"display_name":"Ryan Hinshaw","author_link":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/author\/ryan-hinshaw\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/435"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.cortland.edu\/dragon-chronicle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}