SEYOUM HEADED TO SUNY NEW PALTZ AFTER ABRUPT END TO SEASON
CLIFTON PARK, NY » Shenendehowa’s Lucas Seyoum finished his senior year with a bang. He won the Most Valuable Player for the Section 2, Class AA Tournament. He was named to the Suburban Council’s 3rd Team, all while accomplishing his teams’ larger goal of winning the section championship.
Although the NYS regional and state tournament was suspended indefinitely, Seyoum’s basketball journey is not over.
“I’m going to play basketball at [SUNY] New Paltz and get an electrical engineering degree,” he said.
While he made the commitment a few months ago, it was his travel basketball team where the New Paltz coaches really took an interest in having Seyoum join the Hawks.
“I decided in December or January, but they started talking to me over the summer from playing AAU ball. They also saw me during my [junior] high school season, but most of the recruiting that they did was during AAU,” Seyoum said.
He also discussed how the Plainsmen reacted when they found out they wouldn’t be playing their Regional Championship game on March 14.
“For the most part, nobody knew how to react. The season has never ended before because of a virus. That’s like a once-in-a-generation thing that happens,” he said.
“Everyone was sad and in shock, but that’s because we just didn’t know how to react.”
SUNY New Paltz is a NCAA Division III school, which plays in the SUNY Athletic Conference (SUNYAC). While the Hawks were able to finish their season, SUNYAC cancelled all spring sports in their conference.
Seyoum has maintained contact with his college coaches throughout the coronavirus ordeal.
“They did [reach out]. It happened at New Paltz too. Everyone’s sort of had the same reaction.”
In his senior senior for the Plainsmen, he averaged
Lucas Seyoum shoots a free throw in Shen’s semifinal victory against Niskayuna on March 3, 2020. 10.1 points per game, with a season high of 18 points against Saratoga Springs on February 11, 2020.
“Coming off a sectional championship, we were looking to make a run in the regionals and make it to states and hopefully do well there.”
Shen is known as a team that shoots three pointers. While Seyoum made 15 of those during the season, the 6’4” senior was the key to his team’s inside game.
He helped show exactly how versatile the Plainsmen were during the fourth quarter against Green Tech in the Section 2 Championship, scoring 10 of his 15 points in the fourth quarter.
While Seyoum acknowledges there are other parts of his senior year that he will likely miss due to the virus, it is basketball ending that he is most disappointed about.
“Every once in awhile there’s something cool at school; prom, dodgeball tournaments and stuff like that. Now those might not happen, but obviously the most important thing to me is basketball.”
Seyoum joined his teammates Devin Dzikas and Andrew Martin on the Suburban Council’s third team. Jake Reinisch was named to the first team all-stars.