The Express Recap : Week of December 7th
Welcome to The Express Recap. In the week before break, we saw five basketball games for the two Express teams. That week our Athletes of the Week went to First Year Guard Ai Orita (Japan) from the Women's Basketball Team. In her two games, she combined for 16 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, and 7 steals. An impressive week out of the first-year guard! Our second athlete of the week went to Junior Guard Terrence Clayton-Murphy (Lexington, KY), the outstanding play of Clayton-Murphy led him to win this week's honor. Terrance started his week with a 32-point performance against Elmira, a 28-point performance at home against SUNY ESF, and a 22-point performance in the first conference game of the year at Penn State Berks. Congratulations to these two for winning!
We start the week with Men's Basketball. The first team that was taken down by the Express was the Hilbert Hawks with an 88-73 win at home at the Schwartz Athletic Center. This game saw Junior Transfer Billy McCrae (Washington Township, NJ) have a game-high with 22 points on a very efficient 75% shooting, McCrae added 4 blocks to his excellent game. This game also saw a strong performance from last year's United East Rookie of the Year Ransel Rodriguez (Manhattan, NY). The sophomore guard was just 3 assists shy from a triple-double and contributed to the Express' win with 16 points, 11 rebounds, and 7 assists. The second game of the week was against Billy McCrae's former squad in the Houghton Highlanders whom the Express took down 84-71. This game was all about the Sophomore Forward Ivan Oduro-Dompreh (Savage, MD) who had an impressive double-double with 19 points and 11 rebounds. Oduro-Dompreh also added 3 vicious dunks that took the roof off the place. Forward Jalen Feliz (Manhattan, NY) had 12 points and 9 rebounds in 28 minutes of play. The Men's squad ended the semester with a 5-5 record heading into the holiday break with their next two games on Friday, January 6, and Saturday, January 7 against United East opponents Gallaudet Bison and St. Mary's of Maryland Seahawks respectively.
The Women's basketball team fell in each of their three contests during the week but each game had at least one strong performance. In the first game of the week, the Women's team fell to the Hilbert Hawks 64-25 but even with the loss, the Express saw strong performances from first-year guard Ai Orita (Japan) who finished the game with 11 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists. The other strong performance came from transfer Junior Forward Miah Williamson (Elk Grove, CA) who pulled down a team-high 7 rebounds in 16 minutes of action off the bench. In game two of the week, the Express fell on the road to the Utica Pioneers 108-34. Senior forward Morgan Adams (Waverly, NY) had a solid game on the scoreboard having a team-high 17 points, along with 7 rebounds and an efficient 58.3%/100%/100% shooting line going 7-12 from the field, 1-1 from behind the arc and 2-2 from the line. Game three of the week saw the Express fall 75-41 to a future conference opponent in the Alfred State Pioneers which saw a season-high in points for the Express and a breakout game from Sophomore Guard Sydney Bateman (Edmeston, NY) where she scored 17 points and had 6 rebounds while shooting 43.7% from the field and 75% from the three-point line in 35 minutes of play. The first-year guard Ai Orita also had a strong game defensively adding 7 steals to her stat line which was a game-high. The Express ends the semester with this stretch of games. They pick their schedule back up on January 6 at home vs the Gallaudet Bisons and on January 7 against the St. Mary's of Maryland, both United East Conference opponents.
We hope everyone has a happy holiday break and comes back to support the Express! Go Express!
Written by Jake Ouellette
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