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Our Cup Runneth Over

Freshman guard Kyara Frames leads the fast break past a Siena player in the Great Danes' 78-63 win. Forward Alex Foster goes for a layup after grabbing an offensive rebound inside versus Siena. (Photos by Bill Ziskin)

ALBANY, N.Y. (December 12, 2017) — The Albany Cup remained in the hands of UAlbany’s men and women Saturday night in the SEFCU Arena, thanks to a gritty 74-69 victory for the men, just a few hours after the Great Danes women pulled away following a close first quarter for a 78-63 win.

A young but tough Siena men's team wouldn’t let UAlbany get out of range after the Great Danes built up 30-19 leads in the first quarter, 38-28 at half time and 61-50 with 7:50 left in the contest. At that point the Saints went on a 15-2 run to take 65-63 lead with 4:04 left.

But UAlbany’s defense bounced back, as they had done after each Siena run, to limit the Saints to 6 points the rest of the way, while high scorer Travis Charles (19) was hitting for 6 and Joe Cremo and David Nichols were adding three and two point respectively to seal the win.

Cremo, who scored 16, on Monday was named the America East Conference Player of the Week, for the second straight week. The Danes climbed to 10-1, and on Monday rose to #4 in the Mid-Major National Rankings. Siena fell to 2-7. The crowd was 9,701. Read more about the game here.

The Great Danes women were up only 11-10 after the first quarter, but then pulled away with second and third quarter advantages of 29-21 and 21-15. It was the eighth straight Albany Cup win for the women and gave them an edge in the all-time series 11-10 after having been down 3-10 after 2005-06.

UAlbany pretty much settled things with a 13-0 run late in the third quarter to build a 19-point lead. Senior forward Tiana-Jo Carter was the pacesetter for UAlbany in both points, 18, and rebounds, 10. Sophomore guard Mackenzie Trpcic added 16 points and junior forward Heather Forster had four steals. Freshman guard Patricia Conroy had a career high 12 points and on Monday was named the America East Conference Rookie-of-the-Week.

UAlbany rose to 7-2 with the win, Siena falling to 4-5. You can read more about the women’s victory here.

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