OSWEGO, N.Y. – Junior Jack Plesser was named Most Valuable Player and classmate Tanner Tedesco earned All-Tournament honors as the Union College men's basketball team defeated Oswego State by an 81-75 score to capture top honors at the Max Ziel Tournament, held on Friday and Saturday at Oswego's Max Ziel Gymnasium.
 
Tedesco led Union (2-0) with 18 points and a game-high 11 assists, while senior Christian Dufort also had a double-double of 14 points and a game-high 14 rebounds. Plesser chipped in 17 points and seven boards while fellow junior Matthew Garside scored 13 for the visitors.
 
Garside drained a three-pointer on Union's second possession of the game and the visitors never trailed on the night, with only a pair of ties spoiling a potential wire-to-wire victory. Oswego last tied the game at 38 with 5:18 to go in the opening half, but Union responded with eight straight points to take a 46-38 lead with 2:50 on the clock. The Garnet Chargers matched their largest lead of the half at the final buzzer after a layup by first-year Pat Cullinan with seven seconds left.
 
Union again had a fantastic start to the game shooting the ball, connecting on 20-of-33 (60.6 percent) attempts from the field and hitting 6-of-11 (54.5 percent) attempts from beyond the arc.
 
A 12-0 run early in the second half bumped the lead into double-digits for the first time and put the score at 62-43 after a layup by senior Neil Daterao with 16:20 remaining. However, Oswego hung around and slowly started to chip away at the deficit, eventually whittling the lead down to four in the final minute. But a pair of Tedesco free throws stemmed the tide and the Lakers missed three shots on their final possession to finish off the game.
 
Despite cooling down to 44.8 percent in the second half, Union still finished the game shooting 53.2 percent (33 of 62) from the field and 36.8 percent (7 of 19) from three-point land. Oswego was limited to 37.3 percent (28 of 75) shooting overall on the day.
 
Union will return to action on Thursday with a 5 p.m. non-conference matchup at Middlebury College.