Geneseo women’s basketball ended a multiple-game road trip this weekend, adding two more victories against SUNYAC rivals SUNY Oswego and SUNY Cortland to their now eight-game win streak.
As they plan to finish the first half of the season with two home games on Friday Dec. 7 and Saturday Dec. 8, the Knights want to continue their consistency.
“We’ve really emphasized all season that we need to be consistent and play Geneseo basketball wherever we go,” senior guard Kelsey Poplawski said. “That was a point we drove home all weekend to start the SUNYACs. It was a fun weekend, but also a good test for us.”
The Knights began by travelling to Oswego on Friday Nov. 30 to take on their first SUNYAC rival of the season. Coming away with a decisive 74-48 victory, the team made an early mark on the SUNYAC standings.
All 12 players were able to score at least once against Oswego, an achievement which sophomore forward Kerrin Montgomery felt elevated the victory.
“It felt like more of a team win,” Montgomery said. “They’re all team wins, but it felt really exciting for everyone to be a part of it and have their own piece in there.”
Geneseo defeated Oswego by 26 points, but head coach Alyssa Polosky emphasized that big victories only last as long as the game does.
“In those types of games where you win fairly big, there’s still a lot you can learn about yourself as a team and things you can get better at,” Polosky said. “Just because it was a large margin of victory doesn’t mean that we’re anywhere near where we need to be at this point. We’re just working every day to get better and focusing on us. This weekend was great, but by Monday morning we’ve moved on and we’re looking forward.”
The day after defeating Oswego, the Knights travelled to Cortland for what they worried would be a challenging game, according to senior forward Nicole Kaczmarczyk.
“[Cortland’s fans and] bench get into it a lot,” Kaczmarczyk said. “Even if they’re down, they’re not going to give up—they always play to the last second. So there’s no breaks because you have to be constantly on your toes.”
Despite’s Cortland’s homecourt energy, Geneseo left with a sizeable 14-point margin in their 67-53 victory. Poplawski, junior guard Sara Ciotti and sophomore guard Natalie Alfieri were all able to score ten points or more throughout the game. The offensive edge kept Cortland at a double-digit point distance for almost all of the game.
Although both of their first games against SUNYAC teams ended in conclusive victories for the Knights, head coach Alyssa Polosky emphasized that the team didn’t want to take anything for granted.
“In this conference, any team can win any night—there’s no guarantees at all,” Polosky said. “We know that we have to show up every night and give our best effort or else we could give away a game we maybe shouldn’t have.”
The Knights will have only their second home game of the season in Kuhl Gymnasium against SUNY Potsdam on Friday Dec. 7. The team planned for six consecutive away games to lighten the load later on, but the players look forward to having the homecourt advantage, according to Polosky.
“They’ve been road warriors the first seven of the eight games that we’ve played and that’s not an easy thing to do,” Polosky said. “We have a veteran team and we knew that the players could handle it, but we are so excited to be back home and to see our fans again.”
Poplawski underscored that excitement to be back at Geneseo for the last games of the semester.
“We’re excited to have home games,” Poplawski said. “We haven’t really had any yet this season, so it’ll be nice to have people come and support us for this weekend.”