CORTLAND, N.Y. – The second-seeded Oswego State baseball team used a bottom of the ninth, walk-off home run by Ryan Enos to upend No. 3 New Paltz 4-3 on the first day of the SUNYAC Championship – hosted by top-seeded Cortland. Oswego advances to play the host Red Dragons at 1 p.m. on Friday, with the winner advancing to Saturday's championship round.
New Paltz was able to even the game at 3-3 in the sixth inning and neither team was able to score over the next three frames. That all changed on the first pitch in the bottom of the ninth. With the top of the order coming to the plate, Enos led off by jumping on an inside fastball. The freshman lined a blast over the left field fence to end the stalemate with Oswego celebrating at the plate.
It was the Lakers' second solo shot of the day, as Brandon Nicholson knocked a homer to the same part of the field as Enos to give Oswego a 3-2 lead after five.
The scoring started with the Hawks plating two unearned runs in the top of the fourth inning. Oswego immediately countered as a double by Myles Kutscher sent Mike Dellicarri home to make it 2-1. In the next at-bat, Eli Holton hit a sacrifice fly to left field, scoring John Barnes. Dellicarri and Barnes began the inning with back-to-back walks.
Senior Reston Pettit earned the start and threw a stellar 7.1 innings in a no-decision. Pettit allowed just three runs – only one of which was earned – on 115 pitches with four strikeouts. With the go-ahead run in scoring position in the eighth, senior Mike Abrams entered in relief of Pettit. Abrams forced a groundout to second, allowing the runner to advance to third. With two outs, Abrams again got a slow-rolling grounder, this time to short. Robert Donnelly charged to the infield grass, made the play and tossed to first where Kevin Hylas picked a short hop to end the threat.
Abrams worked an easy 1-2-3 ninth inning with two fly outs and a groundout to pick up his first victory of the 2018 campaign.
At the dish, Nicholson, Kutscher and Hylas all had 2-for-4 outings to pace the Lakers. Enos, Barnes, Donnelly and Lukas Olsson each had a hit apiece to account for Oswego's 10 hits on the afternoon.