Mark DeMilio had one of three Cortland State hits and went high to grab a line drive and start a key double play in the eighth inning. d3photography.com photo by Steve Frommell

By Erik Buchinger
for D3sports.com

GRAND CHUTE, Wis. - Cortland State overcame five errors to defeat Salisbury 4-3 in game three of the D-III World Series from Fox Cities Stadium in Appleton, Wis.

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Salisbury and Cortland split the two games they played against each other on Feb. 22 and 23.

Cortland coach Joe Brown has the highest winning percentage among active coaches with a minimum of five years in Division III, while Salisbury coach Doug Fleetwood has the second highest.

“Cortland is a good team,” Fleetwood said. “We play them every year and we played them this year. They do a really nice job.”

Cortland got on the board first when Mark DeMilio singled, stole second and scored on the second of two wild pitches thrown by Brett Collacchi.

Two walks and an error led to a run-scoring sacrifice fly hit by Vinny Bomasuto that scored Anthony Iacomini, extending the lead to 2-0 after the first inning.

“Cortland is a good team,” Fleetwood said. “They did a nice job and we didn’t go out there and do what we needed to do. When you walk people and make a ton of errors, we got what we deserved.”

Cortland threatened again in the second inning with runners on first and second with nobody out. After a groundout advanced the runners, Conrad Ziemendorf hit a ground ball to second and Johnny Schiotis threw out Tim Panetta at the plate. Collachi got Iacomini to ground out to end the inning.

Salisbury began the fourth inning with a walk and a single, followed by consecutive errors from Cortland shortstop Anthony Simon to cut the deficit to 2-1.

Cortland came right back in the bottom of the fourth with a hit batter, a single, and an RBI groundout to the pitcher from DeMilio. Ziemendorf reached on an error by second baseman Schiotis that scored Simon to take a 4-1 lead.

Ryan Daiss came on in the fifth to replace Collacchi, who went four innings, allowing two hits, four runs, two earned, walked six and struck out a batter.

“I was just trying to get settled in,” Collacchi said. “I did have some control issues today. I try to go out and have no walks and get into the sixth or seventh inning and I couldn’t do that for my team, but we just got to flush this one and come back and battle tomorrow and see if we can win this thing.”

The score remained the same until the top of the eighth. After singles by Quinn Griffith and Schiotis, Bobby Sanzone’s sacrifice bunt advanced the runners to second and third. Both runners scored on an error by Simon, his third of the game, cutting the lead to 4-3.

Steven Kimmelman replaced Palumbo, who threw 7-1/3 innings, allowing five hits, three runs, one earned, walked three, and struck out six.

“I felt good warming up,” Palumbo said. “I got a little mad at myself because I was walking guys with two outs. When I got ahead of guys, it got a lot easier for me to pitch and I got out of a couple jams that could have gone either way, but luckily they went our way today.”

Austin Barefoot hit a sharp line drive to DeMilio at second base, who leaped high in the air to snag the ball and threw to first to get Jordan Gowe for an inning-ending double play.

“I just jumped up,” DeMilio said. “I can’t really say much about it. I was looking for a ground ball. It was a big play.”

According to Brown, he screamed to DeMilio before the pitch that the Barefoot hits the ball to the right side.

“Sometimes we get caught up in overanalyzing,” Brown said. “He made a great athletic play.”

Bill Root reached on an error to third base to in the bottom of the ninth inning. Two batters later, Simon committed his fourth error, matching a Division III World Series record.

“A couple ate him up over there,” Brown said. “The key was Mark and Stevie Kimmelman responding with pitches to pick each other up. I’ve been there. In my junior year in college, I had a ground ball go between my legs with the bases loaded in the regional. The key is to respond mentally and these guys did a nice job picking our shortstop up, who is a very good baseball player.”

Kimmelman got Griffith to fly out to center to end the game.

Fleetwood announced last month that he will step down from the position and will focus fully on the Salisbury football team where he is the assistant head coach and offensive and recruiting coordinator.

“It’s not about me, it’s about these kids,” Fleetwood said. “I want these kids to go out and compete and we are not going to make any excuses. They outplayed us and they beat us.”

Cortland will resume play Saturday at 7:45 p.m. CT against the winner of the Southern Maine-Whitewater game, while Salisbury will play the loser at 1:15 p.m. CT Saturday.