BALTIMORE, MD. – Scott Giordano (Croton-on-Hudson/Croton-Harmon) went 2-for-3 with two walks, two steals and three RBI and Cortland's pitching allowed only three hits and one unearned run as the nationally second-ranked Red Dragons defeated MIT, 7-1, to close out its three games at the Johns Hopkins Baltimore Invitational. 
 
Cortland finished 2-1 over the weekend and improved to 5-1 on the season. MIT fell to 0-3, with its three losses coming to nationally ranked teams Cortland, N.C. Wesleyan and Johns Hopkins during the tournament. The Engineers were an NCAA tournament team in 2019 but played only three games in 2020 and did not play last spring. 
 
Zack Durant (Verona/V-V-S) started for Cortland and allowed one unearned run in two and a third innings. He didn't allow any hits, walked four and fanned three. Patrick Dalton (Bethpage), Cortland's second reliever, gave up two hits, walked none and struck out four in two and two thirds innings, followed by Dylan Beers (Woodbury/Monroe-Woodbury), who gave up only one hit and no walks and struck out six batters in three innings. Beers was deemed Cortland's most effective reliever and was awarded the win. Will McCarthy (Farmingdale) tossed a perfect ninth inning with two strikeouts. 
 
The two pitching staffs registered a combined 29 strikeouts - 15 by Cortland and 14 by MIT. Starter Graham Cartwright allowed six hits, three walks and four runs and struck out six in three and two thirds innings to suffer the loss for the Engineers. James Moore fanned four batters but gave up three hits, three walks and two runs in two and two thirds frames. Karl Meyer and Brian Rapanan each struck out two hitters in an inning and a third apiece. 
 
Four Red Dragons registered multiple hits as part of an 11-hit attack. In addition to Giordano, Matthew Krafft (Cornwall) was 2-for-4 with a homer, two RBI and two runs, and Antonio Pragana (Hopewell Junction/John Jay) and Andrew Michalski (Buffalo/St. Francis) each finished 2-for-4 with a run scored. Pragana also reached on a walk. 
 
Cortland took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning. Danny Coleman (Saratoga Springs) drove in the first run on a sacrifice fly and the second run scored on a balk. MIT got its run without the benefit of a hit in the second on an error, a walk, a sacrifice bunt, a hit batter, and a bases-loaded walk by Jake Sonandres. 
 
Cortland scored twice in the fourth on Giordano's two-run single - the fourth Red Dragon hit of the inning - and in the fifth Mat Bruno (Rye) led off with a triple and scored on a one-out Krafft squeeze bunt. The lead grew to 6-1 in the sixth on a Giordano RBI single, and Krafft hit a leadoff homer in the ninth to close out the scoring. MIT had runners on first and third in the third inning before grounding into a double play, and put runners on second and third with one out in the fifth after a Michael Finch ground-rule double before Dalton escaped the jam with two strikeouts. 
 
Cortland is scheduled to play at Rochester Wednesday and home in a doubleheader Sunday versus Alfred State, but those games may be changed due to the weather.