The St. John Fisher College men’s basketball team overcame a 10-point deficit in the second half and held on to beat visiting SUNY Oswego 72-71 on Friday in the semifinals of the ECAC Upstate Championship on Friday.
With the win, Fisher advances to Saturday’s championship game and will host Hartwick College at 2 p.m. Hartwick defeated SUNY Fredonia 52-50 in Friday's other semifinal game.
Oswego's Tommy Downing, who was fouled on a 3-pointer, made the first of two free throws with 3.9 seconds left, pulling the Lakers to within one point at 72-71. After a Fisher timeout, Downing third free throw hit the back of the rim and was rebounded by teammate Jose Uribe. Uribe attempted a fade-away jumper from 10 feet out on the left side, but the shot came up short as time expired.
Fisher, who led by four at 35-31 after Ozell Franklin hit a 3-pointer on the Cardinals’ first possession of the second half, trailed by 10 points at 50-40 with 13:57 left. The Cardinals, however, battled back and outscored the Lakers 15-2 over the next eight minutes.
The final 4:46 featured seven lead-changes and four ties.
Oswego took it last last lead 66-65 with 2:34 left on a 30-footer from Kyle Reuter, who finished with 30 points. Fisher went back up three however on back-to-back buckets. Ozell Franklin hit a pull-up jumper from the foul line with 2:22 left to give Fisher the lead back and Michael Wopperer, who finished with 18 points on 9-of-12 shooting made it 69-66 with a lay up with 1:34 left.
Reuter answered again for Oswego, tying the game at 69-69 with a traditional three-point-play with just over one minute left. The Cardinals took the lead for good with 42 seconds left on two free throws from Brandon Witte to make it 71-69. Ozell Franklin closed out the scoring for Fisher, going 1-for-2 from the foul line with 16.5 seconds left.