CORTLAND, N.Y. - Tyler Phillips (Hancock) and Jack Massa (Shoreham/Shoreham-Wading River) each homered and finished with three hits and Patrick Schetter (Beacon) went 4-for-5 as Cortland defeated visiting Oneonta, 8-3, in the opening game of a three-game weekend series.
Cortland (20-5, 5-2 SUNYAC) reached the 20-win plateau for the 28th consecutive season. Oneonta fell to 9-8 overall and 2-4 in the league. The teams will play a doubleheader in Cortland Sunday at noon.
Alex Weingarten (East Rockaway/Lynbrook) improved to 5-1 with six innings of four-hit ball. He allowed two runs, struck out seven, and walked none. He retired the first nine batters he faced, extending his streak of consecutive outs recorded to 23 dating back to his last start versus Brockport, before allowing a Brandon Torres leadoff double in the fourth.
Payten Boice (Homer) went the final three innings for his third save of the spring. He permitted just one hit and one unearned run and fanned two. Oneonta starter Takoda Sitar gave up 10 hits and six runs with two walks and four strikeouts in four and a third innings.
Phillips finished 3-for-5 with a homer and three RBI and Massa was 3-for-5 with a homer and RBI. Schetter singled in each of his first four at-bats before grounding out in the eighth. Nate Budge (Central Square/Paul V. Moore) was 2-for-3 with a double and RBI, Paul Dondero (East Islip) finished 2-for-4 with two doubles and an RBI, and Steven Figueroa (Bronx/St. Raymond's) reached base three times on a single and two walks.
Torres was 2-for-4 with an RBI and three runs scored for Oneonta. Sean Mullins drove in two runs.
Cortland grabbed a 2-0 lead in the first when Figueroa led off with a walk and Phillips hit a two-run homer to left. Justin Teague's (North Syracuse/Cicero-North Syracuse) two-out infield single drove in a run in the second to make it a 3-0 game.
Oneonta got on the board in the fourth on Torres' leadoff double, a Mickey Mullins sac bunt, and a Sean Mullins sac fly. Cortland, however, answered in the bottom of the fourth on a Dondero leadoff double and a Phillips one-out RBI single, and the hosts plated two runs in the fifth on Massa's leadoff homer and Budge's RBI double.
Torres hit a solo homer, right after Weingarten picked off a runner at first, to cut Cortland's lead to 6-2 in the top of the sixth. The host Red Dragons got that run back on a double play grounder, and added a run in the seventh on a Dondero fielder's choice. Oneonta's final run came in the ninth on an error and two groundouts.