DEMOREST, GA. – The Cortland baseball team opened its 2019 SUNYAC schedule with a pair of shutouts verrus Plattsburgh in games played at Piedmont College in Georgia. The Red Dragons won the nine-inning opener, 9-0, on a combined one-hitter by Zack Durant (Verona/V-V-S) and Andrew Barnes (Rochester, NH/Spaulding) and the seven-inning second game, 7-0, on a combined four-hitter by Matt Valin (LaFargeville) and Isiah Hudson (Hyde Park/FDR).
Cortland, ranked 25th nationally in Division III, improved to 9-8-1 overall. Plattsburgh fell to 2-10 overall and 0-5 in the SUNYAC.
The teams will play a single game Saturday at Piedmont at 11 a.m. – the time was changed from the original start time of noon.
Cortland 9, Plattsburgh 0
Durant tossed seven hitless innings with six strikeouts and three walks before being pulled after throwing 101 pitches. Barnes came in to start the eighth and allowed a leadoff single to Kentaro Mori, but got the next hitter to ground into a double play and retired the final four batters.
Cortland finished with 14 hits as five players recorded multiple-hit outings. James Varian (Hopewell Junction/Trinity-Pawling) finished 2-for-3 with a triple and two RBI and Joe Tardif (Cutchogue/Mattituck) was 2-for-3. Marcos Perivolaris (Mattituck) and Colin BeVard (Syracuse/West Genesee) each went 2-for-4 with a double and two RBI, with BeVard also drawing a walk, and Wyatt Myers (Chittenango) finished 2-for-4 with two doubles and an RBI.
Cortland scored at least once in each of the first four innings. Myers doubled home a run in the first, and a three-run second featured a BeVard RBI double and Scott Giordano (Croton-on-Hudson/Croton-Harmon) sac fly. Varian hit a two-run double in the third and Pervolaris added a two-run double in the fourth. Cortland's final run came on BeVard's two-out RBI single in the seventh.
Durant improved to 3-2 with the victory. PJ Weeks started for Plattsburgh and allowed six runs in two innings. Matthew Triola was charged with three runs over five innings of relief and Pierce Steinberg didn't allow a run over two frames.
Cortland 7, Plattsburgh 0
Valin picked up his second win of the season after allowing three hits and one walk over five innings. He struck out three batters. Hudson allowed only one hit over the last two innings on a leadoff triple by Stephen Bryant in the seventh, but he got out of the jam and preserved the shutout with a strikeout, flyout and pop-up. Hudson ended with two strikeouts and no walks.
Cortland scored in the first when Giordano reached second on a single and error, was bunted to third by BeVard and scored on Brian Corporan's (Bronx/H.S. for Environmental Studies) sac fly.
The score remained 1-0 until the top of the fourth when the Red Dragons put up five runs. Tardif drove in the first run with a sac fly, followed an RBI single by Giordano. Two batters later Corporan singled home a run, and Myers hit a two-run double to right center. Giordano completed the scoring with a sac fly in the fifth.
Plattsburgh's best threat during Valin's five innings came in the fifth when Niko Siragusa walked with two outs and Erik Matz singled. Valin got the next batter to ground into a fielder's choice force out to end the inning.
Tardif went 2-for-2 with an RBI, Giordano was 2-for-3 with two RBI and two runs, and Myers ended 2-for-4 with a double and two RBI.