The Geneseo women's basketball team logged its 11th and 12th consecutive victories this week, improving to 16-2 overall and to 11-0 in SUNYAC play.
The Knights last won 12 in a row during the 2002-2003 campaign when they went on to a 22-7 overall record and an Eastern College Athletic Conference Upstate championship.
"All in all, I felt good about the last two games in the stretch, but we still have a lot of growth left to do as a team," said head coach Scott Hemer. The team's most recent victories were away at SUNY Brockport and at home versus Buffalo State. "You can talk about endurance or fatigue, but I think at this point in the season our biggest obstacle will not be overcoming the physical fatigue, but the mental fatigue."
On Friday, the Knights put their mental strength to the test as they trailed Brockport, 52-50 with little more than five minutes remaining. Like any championship-caliber team, Geneseo dialed up its defense, holding the Golden Eagles scoreless for the remainder of the game.
"If there's one thing I can say about this group it's that they've done a tremendous job overcoming adversity throughout this season during games," Hemer said. "If they can learn to overcome the adversity of the mental fatigue I think we match up with anybody in our conference and I think we put ourselves in a nice position to have a very strong, successful finish."
Senior Alyssa Polosky continued her strong season, leading the team with 15 points, and senior Khadija Campbell added a double-double of her own to bring the Knights to a 61-52 victory.
Against Buffalo State, the Knights blew a 10-point first half lead and trailed the Bengals by two points with a little over 11 minutes to play. Resilient as always, the Knights stormed ahead and never looked back. They shot an astounding 66.7 percent from behind the arc in the second half with Polosky, sophomore Melissa Graham and junior Bri Dunton doing most of the damage.
"The balance we get is what I think makes us different from anybody else in our conference because we simply do not have to rely on one person any given night," said Hemer on his team's 64-52 win over the Bengals on Tuesday.
"Put yourself into a coach's role and ask yourself, ‘If we've got Geneseo this coming Friday, who do we need to stop to win the game?' and your guess is as good as mine. It's somebody different every night so you better hope that you pick the right one."
The Knights will host SUNY Potsdam and SUNY Plattsburgh on Friday and Saturday, respectively, with hopes of keeping the streak alive.
"I told the young ladies in the locker room after the game [on Tuesday] that we've got to look at ourselves in the mirror and ask what we want to be and how we want to be remembered," Hemer said. "Hopefully we can do that and keep growing, finish strong and see where this magical ride takes us."