ENDWELL, N.Y. – The nationally 16th-ranked Cortland baseball team improved to 5-4-1 on the season with a doubleheader sweep of Rutgers-Newark at Maine-Endwell High School. The Red Dragons won the opener, 7-4, and the nightcap, 7-2, in a pair of nine-inning contests. The games were originally scheduled to be played in New Jersey but were moved due to field conditions.
Cortland will play a single game Sunday at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. The game time has been changed from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.
Cortland 7, Rutgers-Newark 4
Jake Casey (Homer) earned the win in relief with five and two -third innings of one-hit ball. He struck out three and walked three. Casey entered just one out into the bottom of the first (Rutgers-Newark was the "home" team in both contests) after starter Matt Valin (LaFargeville) gave up a hit and three walks. Casey allowed a sac fly that gave the Scarlet Raiders a 2-1 lead, but did not allow a hit until the sixth inning.
Dan Hobbs (Saratoga Springs), Cortland's third reliever of the game, pitched the final two and two thirds innings for his second save of the season. He came in with the Red Dragons up 6-2 and the potential tying run on deck in the seventh. Despite giving up an RBI single to Gerardo Reyes and an RBI double to Luke Magliaro, Hobbs settled down to avoid further damage in the seventh, then retired the side in order in both the eighth and ninth.
Cortland led 1-0 in the first on a Marcos Perivolaris (Mattituck) RBI groundout. Rutgers-Newark, playing its first games of the season, scored twice in the first on a (Luke) Magliaro bases-loaded walk and a Dominic Magliaro sac fly. The Red Dragons took the lead for good with two in the second on a run-scoring double play grounder and a Dan Schweitzer (Poughquag/Arlington) RBI double.
The Red Dragons plated three in the fourth despite recording only one hit as two errors and a walk keyed the inning. Scott Giordano (Croton-on-Hudson/Croton-Harmon) closed Cortland's scoring with a sac fly in the eighth.
Giordano and Schweitzer each went 2-for-3 with a walk and RBI and Colin BeVard (Syracuse/West Genesee) was 2-for-5 for the Red Dragons. Reyes finished 2-for-4 with an RBI and (Luke) Magliaro was 1-for-3 with a walk and two RBI for Rutgers-Newark. Luis Rojas took the loss after allowing six runs, two earned, in four innings.
Cortland 7, Rutgers-Newark 2
Zack Durant (Verona/V-V-S) was sharp on the mound to earn his first win of the season. In six scoreless innings he allowed only three hits and one walk and struck out nine batters. Three Red Dragon relievers each tossed one inning. Chris Puzakulics (Vestal) struck out two during a 1-2-3 eighth inning and Kyle Naugle (Fayetteville/Jamesville-DeWitt) retired the side in order in the ninth with one strikeout.
A five-run fourth inning proved to be the difference offensive for the Red Dragons, who pounded out 14 hits compared to just six for the Scarlet Raiders. Six of those hits came during the 10-batter fourth, including RBI singles by Perivolaris and Paul Franzese (Somers), a BeVard RBI triple that nearly left the park, a Sam Kippen (Lyncourt/Solvay) RBI single and a Giordano run-producing double.
Cortland also notched a run in the first on a Giordano single, steal, and error after a Schweitzer infield single, and a run in the sixth on a Joseph Dwy (Hillsdale/Taconic Hills) leadoff triple and a wild pitch.
Rutgers-Newark's two runs came in the bottom of the seventh. (Dominic) Magliaro singled with one out and took second on an error during the play. He scored on a Tommy Scanlon two-out single, and Christian Diaz followed with an RBI double.
Giordano went 3-for-4 with an RBI and Kippen was 2-for-3 with an RBI, while nine other Red Dragons registered one hit apiece. Connor Clare finished 2-for-4 for Newark. Anthony Rosoline suffered the loss after permitting 10 hits and six runs, five earned, in three and two thirds innings.