WASHINGTON, PA. – The Cortland baseball team moved into the championship round of the NCAA Division III Mideast Regional with a convincing 22-4 victory over Keystone College in an elimination game.
The Red Dragons (37-8) will face unbeaten host Washington & Jefferson College Monday at noon. The Presidents need a win to advance to the NCAA Division III World Series. If Cortland is victorious, a winner-take-all championship game will follow. Cortland has won four straight games at the regional after losing its opener Thursday night to DePauw.
Cortland is looking to earn its fourth straight World Series berth and 15th overall. W&J is making its sixth NCAA tournament appearance and is seeking its first World Series showing.
Tyler Phillips finished the day with a combined 11 runs batted in over Sunday's two games. He homered twice, including a grand slam, and finished with eight RBI versus Keystone after driving in three runs earling in the day versus DePauw. Phillips is the first Cortland player to drive in eight runs in a game since Steve Wanamaker versus Oswego in 2002.
Cortland led 11-3 after five innings, then put the game out of reach with an 11-run sixth inning that featured nine hits and 16 total batters. Cortland's 22 runs are the second-highest by a Red Dragon squad in NCAA play – Cortland scored 23 runs in a 2010 World Series victory over Johns Hopkins.
Every Red Dragon starter finished with at least one hit. Phillips was 3-for-5 with two homers, a double, eight RBI and three runs scored. He hit a grand slam in the fourth to put Cortland ahead 8-2 and added a three-run homer during the 11-run sixth.
Patrick Schetter was 4-for-4 with a homer, two doubles, two RBI and three runs and finished the day a combined 8-for-9. His solo homer – the first of his collegiate career – gave Cortland a 1-0 lead in the second. Nate Budge went 2-for-5 with a double, hit-by-pitch and four RBI and Marcos Perivolaris was 2-for-4 with a triple, three RBI and three runs scored. Also, Steven Figueroa went 1-for-4 with two walks, two RBI and two runs scored, and Colin BeVard scored three times.
Mike Harrington started but was pulled one out into the bottom of the fourth with two runners. He allowed three hits, two walks and two runs and struck out two. Michael DeCarlo earned the win out of the bullpen with four and two thirds innings of six-hit ball. He gave up two runs, walked two and struck out five. Ralph Nuzzi allowed two hits in a scoreless ninth inning in his first collegiate pitching appearance, and Jesse Winters recorded a pinch-hit single in the ninth in his first plate appearance as a Red Dragon.
Keystone starter Billy Nelson took the loss after allowing eight runs, four earned, in four innings. Austin Chaszar went 3-for-4 with a homer, double, walk, two RBI and two runs for the Giants (33-15), last year's national runner-up. His two-run homer in the third pulled Keystone within 4-2. Sebastian De La Cruz was 2-for-3 with a double and an RBI.
Schetter's homer, followed by a Perivolaris triple and a wild pitch put Cortland up 2-0 in the second. Phillips doubled in a run and Schetter hit an RBI single in the third. The Phillips grand slam made it 8-2 in the fourth. The Red Dragons added three more in the fifth on a Perivolaris sac fly and a Figueroa two-run single.
In the sixth, Cortland scored 11 runs in an inning during an NCAA tournament game for the second time in three years. The Red Dragons plated 11 runs versus Frostburg State during a World Series victory in 2015. The inning versus Keystone featured two-run singles by Perivolaris and Budge, a Paul Dondero RBI single, Phillips' three-run homer, a Jack Massa RBI single, and Budge's second two-run single of the inning. Keystone finished the scoring on an Adam Kelly bases-loaded walk in the eighth.