Box Score New Paltz, NY — The State University of New York at New Paltz men's basketball team nearly overcame a slow first half offensive performance to comeback and upset visiting The College at Brockport Friday. But ultimately, the Golden Eagles (4-1) were able to close out with the, 79-71 win.
 
"I'm into moral victories, but I think I was just happy with their effort," said SUNY New Paltz coach Keith Kenney. "I was happy with their defensive effort. They didn't back down. They came to play. I thought the difference in the game we didn't make shots."
  The Hawks (1-4) played tough defensively to start the night, causing four turnovers and four missed shots before the Golden Eagles found their first basket of the game at 17 minutes, 3 seconds left on the game clock.
 
SUNY New Paltz matched Brockport in the first 15 minutes and were within five with less than six minutes to play, but the Golden Eagles started pushing the tempo.
 
With the Hawks locked in on star forward Hamed Shamseldin, he was able to facilitate for his teammates, especially to Justin Summers and Michael O'Hara. The two combined for 28 points in the first half alone.
 
"Honestly, our focus and game plan was to stop [Shamseldin]. He had a triple-double on Monday and then he had 42 points on Tuesday, so we were trapping him off pick and roll," Kenney said. "We decided we weren't going to try to let him beat us, but he's an unselfish guy and he found his teammates… so in the second half we decided to pay more attention to those guys."
 
Brockport extended its lead 40-24 following a 15-4 run to end the half after catching the SUNY New Paltz in a shooting slump. The Hawks hit just 35.5 percent from the field and just 8.3 percent from 3-point range on 12 attempts.
 
"I wouldn't say decided, because I thought we were still in it," Kenney said about the Golden Eagles first-half run. "But, it's tough when you miss that many open shots against a really, really good defensive team. It's hard to get open shots against them and we got open shots for our best shooters and it was just one of those nights our shot didn't fall."
 
However, despite a poor shooting first half and a 16-point deficit, SUNY New Paltz kept grinding and slowly chipped away at the lead.
 
The Hawks started the half with five-straight points and began finding their shooting touch as the half progressed.
 
Nick Paquette knocked down two 3's within two minutes and then the crowd really started getting back in after Cory Garcia lofted up an alley-oop to Brandon Guest for the emphatic dunk to get within 12.
 
After Brockport started pulling away once again, Tristan Wisseman got SUNY New Paltz back within nine, scoring five straight points with about eight minutes left.
 
However, the Golden Eagles continued to pad their lead and went up by as much as 15 with about two and a half minutes left in the game, although the Hawks didn't let up and went on a 9-1 run to get within seven with 37 seconds left.
 
After a made free throw by Brockport, Kevin Coyle answered on the next possession with a three to cut the deficit to five with 17 seconds remaining. It wasn't enough, however and with time running out the Golden Eagles made free throws to ice it.
 
"They don't give up, which is good to see," Kenney said. "They didn't get down on themselves. They kept on playing, but I just think we couldn't overcome a bad shooting first half. We were 1-for-12 from 3 and most of those were wide-open shots, and that's our strength. We won the second half, but we had a terrible first half couldn't climb out of the hole."
 
It was an evenly balanced scoring night for SUNY New Paltz, as 11 players contributed made at least a basket. Dylan Balducci scored a team-high 14 points on 4-of-11 shooting from the field, including 3-of-9 from 3. Coyle followed with 13 points and five rebounds, while Guest added nine points, eight boards and two steals.

The Hawks are back on the court Saturday, hosting SUNY Geneseo for a 3 p.m. tip-off. For live updates, highlights, photos, videos and more be sure to follow @nphawks on Twitter and @newpaltzhawks on Instagram and Facebook. Tweet #NPHawks