CORTLAND, N.Y. - Cortland recorded 15 hits in each contest and Seth Lamando (Hopewell Junction/Roy C. Ketcham) and Jeff Cooke (Rome/Rome Free Academy) each earned wins on the mound as the nationally third-ranked Red Dragons swept visiting Plattsburgh, 11-4 and 12-3, in a SUNYAC doubleheader.
Cortland (26-5, 9-4 SUNYAC) will complete its three-game series with the Cardinals Sunday at 11 a.m. at Wallace Field.
Cortland 11, Plattsburgh 4
Cortland scored at least once in each of the first six innings to take an 11-1 lead on its way to the victory. Lamando, now 6-0 on the year, blanked Plattsburgh on four hits and no walks for five and a third innings. He struck out seven batters.
Conrad Ziemendorf (Penfield/Webster Schroeder) went 3-for-4 with a double, RBI and three runs scored and Fabio Ricci (Hawthorne/Westlake) ended 2-for-3 with a double and three RBI to combine for a third of Cortland's hits. Connor Griffin (Cortland) was 2-for-3 with a an RBI and two runs scored and Matt Personius (Binghamton/Chenango Valley) finished 2-for-2 with a double, two walks and two RBI as he reached base in all four of his trips to the plate.
Adam Calabro went 3-for-4 with two RBI, while Ray Flynn and Jon Craft each finished 2-for-4, to lead Plattsburgh. Matt Fox suffered the loss after allowing nine runs in five innings.
Cortland led 2-0 in the first on a Paul Dondero (East Islip) RBI single and an Austin Clock (Niskayuna) sac fly. Ricci singled in two runs in the second, and Personius added an RBI double in the third. A Steven Figueroa (Bronx/St. Raymond's) sac fly in the fourth extended the lead to 7-0.
Griffin's RBI single and a Justin Teague (North Syracuse/Cicero-North Syracuse) RBI groundout pushed the lead to 9-0 in the fifth. Plattsburgh got on the board with a Calabro RBI single in the sixth, but the Red Dragons answered with two runs that inning on back-to-back RBI doubles by Figueroa and Ricci.
Cortland 12, Plattsburgh 3
Plattsburgh's first five batters of the eighth reached to set up a three-run inning. Eric Rock, Jack Tolosky and T.J. Montalbano led off with three straight singles and Trevor Markey was hit by a pitch to force in a run. Calabro's single drove in a run, and another scored on a double play grounder.
Cortland scored five times in the bottom of the fourth in the seven-inning nightcap to break a 2-2 tie, and the Red Dragons put the game away with four more runs in the fifth. Cooke upped his record to 4-1 with a complete-game effort on the hill. He scattered nine hits, struck out four, and did not walk anyone.
Five Red Dragons registered two hits each. Figueroa went 2-for-2 with a walk and two runs scored, Ricci was 2-for-3 with a triple, double, walk and RBI, and Ziemendorf was 2-for-3 with a double, hit-by-pitch and three RBI. Nick Hart (Fredonia) finished 2-for-2 with a hit-by-pitch and two runs, and Patrick Schetter (Beacon) was 2-for-4 with an RBI and two runs scored.
Billy Rombauts was 3-for-3 and Tolosky and Montalbano each finished 2-for-3 with a run scored for the Cardinals (3-24, 1-10 SUNYAC). Scott Orr pitched the first four innings and faced four batters in the fifth and allowed 10 runs on 11 hits.
The Cardinals struck first when Montalbano singled with two outs in the first, stole second and scored on Markey's single up the middle. Cortland scored twice in the bottom of the first on Griffin's two-out, two-run single down the right field line. Plattsburgh knotted the game in the third when Rock led off with a single, stole second, was bunted to third by Ryan Whalen and scored on a Calabro sac fly.
Cortland's five-run fourth started with Hart being hit by a pitch and back-to-back bunt singles by Schetter and Figueroa. Pinch hitter Lamando, the starting pitcher in the opening game, fouled off numerous pitches before drawing a walk to force in the tiebreaking run. Dondero followed with a two-run double to left center and Ziemendorf hit a two-run single up the middle to give Cortland a 7-2 lead.
The Red Dragons' four-run fifth featured a Schetter RBI single up the middle, a Ziemendorf RBI double and a Ricci RBI triple. The teams traded runs in the sixth. Plattsburgh scored when Tolosky scored from third when Montalbano was picked off first base and was thrown out at second. Cortland's final run came on a Marcos Perivolaris (Mattituck) triple and Nick Dunning (Bellport) RBI single.