CORTLAND, N.Y. - The Cortland baseball team reached the 30-win mark for the 13th straight season and the 23rd time in the last 24 years as the nationally eighth-ranked Red Dragons edged visiting Ithaca, 4-3.
Cortland improved to 30-7 with the victory. The Red Dragons will wrap up their regular-season schedule with a home doubleheader Saturday versus Skidmore at 1 p.m. and a single game home versus SUNY Canton Sunday at 2 p.m. Ithaca fell to 21-10 with the loss.
Andrew Barnes (Rochester, NH/Spaulding) started for Cortland and took a no decision after throwing four scoreless innings. He gave up four hits and one walk and struck out three. Jake Casey (Homer) earned the win after allowing one unearned run on one hit with a walk and a strikeout in an inning and a third. He was the pitcher of record when Cortland took the lead for good in the bottom of the fifth inning.
Billy Goncalves (Manorville/Eastport-South Manor) was the last of six Cortland relievers in the game and picked up the save. He entered with Ithaca runners on first and second and one out in the eighth and the Red Dragons clinging to a 4-3 lead. He got the first two batters he faced to fly out and pop up to end the eighth, and he retired the side in order in the ninth.
Jack Morello started for Ithaca and permitted three runs, two earned, on six hits over five and two thirds innings. He fanned three batters and did not walk anyone, and he dropped to 2-2 on the season.
Cortland took a 1-0 lead in the second. Matthew Personius (Binghamton/Chenango Valley) reached on a one-out bunt single and moved to second on a passed ball. Patrick Schetter (Beacon) singled through the right side, and Personius initially held up at third, but then scored when the ball was misplayed in right field.
Ithaca knotted the game without a hit in the top of the fifth. Josh Savacool got aboard via a one-out error. He took second on a wild pitch, and went to third on the play after a throwing error, and he scored on another wild pitch. Cortland regained the lead in the bottom of the fifth on back-to-back singles by Nate Budge (Central Square/Paul V. Moore) and Matt Michalski (Buffalo/St. Francis) and a pinch-hit RBI groundout by Colin BeVard (Syracuse/West Genesee).
The Red Dragons added to their lead in the sixth on a Schetter bases-loaded sacrifice fly in an inning that included three hit batters. The teams then traded runs in a long seventh inning. The Bombers scored on a Matt Carey RBI single and eventually had the bases loaded before Michael DeCarlo (Wynantskill/Troy), Cortland's fourth pitcher of the inning, induced a fielder's choice force out to preserve the lead. Cortland's run in the bottom of the inning was the result of a BeVard single, a wild pitch, and a Paul Dondero (East Islip) RBI single.
Ithaca rallied again in the eighth on an Adam Gallagher single, a Domenic Boresta walk, and a Carey RBI single to close to within 4-3 before Goncalves entered to squelch the threat.
Cortland finished with nine hits, one each by nine different players. Michalski and BeVard each finished 1-for-2, while Dondero, Budge and Jack Massa (Shoreham/Shoreham-Wading River) each reached base twice with a hit and a hit-by-pitch.
For Ithaca, Carey was 2-for-4 with two RBI and Andrew Bailey and Gallagher each were 2-for-4.