ALFRED, NY – The Alfred University men's basketball team was back on the hardwood on Friday evening after a three week holiday break. The Saxons (7-2, 0-0 Empire 8) were visited by a tough SUNY Brockport team, falling to the Golden Eagles by a score of 84-76 in the final game before conference play begins next week.
 
After grabbing a quick 2-0 lead off of a jumper from Cole Eells (Ithaca, NY/Ithaca), AU fell into an early 11-2 hole with 16:18 on the clock in the first half. From there the Saxons began to chip away at the Brockport lead by getting to the foul line and made the score 13-9 with 13:30 left in the half.
 
Brockport then began to pick up the pace of play again and went on a 12-4 run in the middle portion of the half to extend their lead to 25-13. From that point, the two teams traded blows for the remainder of the first half to go into the locker room with the Golden Eagles leading 41-32.
 
In the early stages of the second half, the Saxons came out firing on all cylinders, cutting a nine point advantage to just four with the help of three-point buckets from Eells and  Scotty Stopera (Scotia-Glenville). The Golden Eagles then pushed the lead back up to eight points before a tremendous pass from Stopera to Brewster Marshall (Horseheads, NY/Horseheads) for a dunk sparked an Alfred run. The Saxon run, capped off by a Sam Dagon (Hornell, NY/Hornell) three made it a 49-48 game early in the second half.
 
The game was back and forth until fouls and a three pointer from Chris Atkinson allowed Brockport to gain and 11 point advantage with 7:58 left to play.
 
After going down 69-58, AU began grinding and showed more fight to cut the lead back down to four with just over three minutes left to play. A timely three from Dom LeMorta (Scotia, NY/Scotia-Glenville), one of his four long balls on the night, allowed the Saxons to keep within reach of the Golden Eagles.
 
At the end of the day, Brockport had a few more buckets fall than the Saxons which resulted in the Golden Eagles picking up their seventh win on the season.
 
"I'm Proud of the way our guys competed tonight. It was a tough, physical game." Head Coach Russell Phillips said. "Just too many turnovers to pull it out. Looking forward to empire 8 play beginning on Tuesday."
 
 
LeMorta led the scoring for the Saxons with 18 points in 31 minutes. Sage Brown (Cortland, NY/Cortland) found double figures in points and rebounds, scoring 15 while grabbing 12 boards. He also picked up three steals on the defensive end. Marshall finished with eight points, seven rebounds and two blocks while Stopera scored 14 and dished out four assists.
 
AU will begin Empire 8 play next Tuesday when they travel to Houghton College with tip set for 7:30PM.