#4 Oneonta Upsets #1 Cortland, Will Face Geneseo in SUNYAC Field Hockey Championship Final

The SUNY Oneonta field hockey team pulled off a major upset today when they knocked top-seeded and rival SUNY Cortland out of the SUNYAC tournament with a 2-1 victory in overtime.  The win for Oneonta (5-12) advanced them into the championship game of the conference tournament this Saturday at SUNY Geneseo, who knocked of No. 2 seeded New Paltz 1-0 today in the other semifinal.

The victory for Oneonta's was also its first win against Cortland in a SUNYAC tournament game in program history, and only their second win against its rival Red Dragons since 1992.

Oneonta found themselves behind 1-0 when Cortland's Jess Gibaldi scored her 10^th goal of the season. The goal came in the 23^rd minute of the contest off of a rebound. Seven minutes later a shot by Cortland's Anna Branch would slip past freshman goaltender Danell Jones (Whitney Point/Whitney Point), but sophomore Allyson Bilow (Webster/Webster Thomas) would pick up her teammate with a huge defensive save. This defensive save would hold the Cortland lead to 1-0 going into the half.

In the second half, sophomore Carissa Warren (Harpursville /Harpursville) dribbled the ball down the left end line and sent a ball in front of the goal where Casey Stata (Round Lake/Shenendehowa)would connect with the back of the cage for an equalizing goal. This was Stata's fourth goal of the season and it would be Warren's team leading seventh assist.

The game headed to 7-v-7 sudden victory overtime, where Oneonta sophomore Amanda Frayer(Harpursville/Harpursville) scored her third goal of the season. Stata beat the Cortland goaltender, but Cortland's Meg Redmond made a defensive save. The ball rebounded off of Redmond and kicked out the right side of the goal. Frayer gained possession of the ball and blasted a shot into the upper left hand corner of the cage for the game winner.

For Oneonta, Jones would have 10 saves and earn her first collegiate victory (1-2).

After the win, Head Coach Kelly Kingsbury said, "There was nothing left in them today.  They left it all out there and it showed!"

Saturday's winner will receive the conference's automatic berth into the NCAA tournament.