CORTLAND, N.Y. – Marcos Perivolaris (Mattituck) and Will Myers (Chittenango) each homered during a seven-run fifth inning and Jake Casey (Homer) allowed one unearned run over five innings as nationally 24th-ranked Cortland defeated visiting Hamilton, 10-1, in a non-league matchup.
Hamilton (12-12) took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first on a Gavin Schaefer-Hood walk, an error during a Rich Marooney sac bunt, and a double steal of second and home by Marooney and Schaefer-Hood. Cortland (23-9-1) tied the game in the third. Antonio Pragana (Hopewell Junction/John Jay) led off with a single for the Red Dragons' first hit off Hamilton starter Brett Sandford. Colin BeVard (Syracuse/West Genesee) followed with a hit-and-run double down the left field line that drove in Pragana and extended BeVard's hitting streak to 17 straight games.
Perivolaris led off the bottom of the fifth with a solo homer to put the Red Dragons up 2-1. Pragana and BeVard each singled, Garrett Hunter (Virginia Beach, VA/Frank W. Cox) hit an RBI double to right, and Scott Giordano (Croton-on-Hudson/Croton-Harmon) ripped a two-run triple down the right field line to give Cortland a 5-1 advantage. The triple extended Giordano's streak of reaching base safely to 25 consecutive games. Ricky Sisto (Liverpool) walked and Myers blasted a three-run homer to left to finish the seven-run inning.
Cortland scored its final two runs on RBI doubles by Andrew Michalski (Buffalo/St. Francis) in the seventh and Steven Salisbury (Cranston, RI/Moses Brown) in the eighth.
Casey, now 4-0 on the season, allowed two hits and four walks and struck out six over five innings. Four Red Dragons each tossed one scoreless inning of relief – Nick Morena (Holbrook/Sachem North) in the sixth, Liam Krasney (Greenville) in the seventh, Shane Mugnolo (Howard Beach/Xaverian) in the eighth and Andrew Barnes (Rochester, NH/Spaulding) in the ninth.
Pragana went 2-for-2 at the plate with a walk and two runs scored and BeVard finished 2-for-3 with a double and RBI. Myers was 1-for-3 with three RBI as a result of his three-run homer and Giordano went 1-for-3 with a triple and two RBI.
Sandford gave up just one run on two hits over the first four innings, but allowed five straight hits to start the fifth before being pulled. Schaefer-Hood led the Continentals' offense by going 1-for-2 with a double, walk and run scored.
Cortland is scheduled to host Oswego in a three-game SUNYAC series this weekend with one game Friday and two Saturday. Poor weather forecasted for Friday, however, may result in a change to that schedule. Any changes would likely be announced on Wednesday.