CORTLAND, NY.  The SUNY Oneonta baseball team fell 6-3 in the first of three conference games against nationally 14th-ranked Cortland. Oneonta and Cortland will complete the series with a doubleheader Saturday starting at 12 p.m. at Wallace Field. Cortland is the "visiting" team in the series, despite the games being played in Cortland, since the contests were originally scheduled to be held in Oneonta.
 
Christian Dufresne (Cocoa, FL/Space Coast) started and earned the win for Cortland. He pitched six innings and surrendered two runs, one earned, on six hits and seven strikeouts. Steven Salisbury (Cranston, RI/Moses Brown) registered his second save of the year by pitching three innings and allowing a run on two hits with six strikeouts. Neither Cortland pitcher permitted a walk.  
 
For the fourth consecutive game, Cortland took the lead in the first inning after Antonio Pragana (Hopewell Junction/John Jay) walked and later scored on a Patrick Schetter (Beacon) RBI groundout. Cortland had runners on base in each of the next four innings but were unable to score until the sixth. Both teams put at least one runner on base in every inning except the eighth.
 
Oneonta cut the deficit to one in the second inning with a leadoff double by sophomore Brandon LaVenture (Schenectady/Notre Dame-Bishop Gibbons) and an RBI groundout off the bat of freshman Patrick McGee (Mahopac/Mahopac). LaVenture was 3-for-4 for the Red Dragons of Oneonta with a home run and two doubles.
 
Oneonta scored the equalizer in the third after a one-out double by Brandon Torres (Highland Mills/Monroe-Woodbury) was converted to a run with assistance of a wild pitch and a throwing error in an attempt to gun him down at third. Torres finished 2-for-4 with a run scored.
 
In the top of the fourth inning, Cortland loaded the bases with one out but was unable to convert to take the lead as Oneonta starter Thomas Bond (Somers/North Salem) induced a strikeout and pop up to escape trouble. Cortland left 11 runners on base (10 in scoring position) to Oneonta's three.
 
Bond allowed six runs, five earned, over six innings. He surrendered five walks and struck out seven. RJ Lyman (Mohegan Lake/Walter Panas), Christopher DiDomizio (Cortlandt Manor/Lakeland), and Michael Dunne (Stony Point/Albertus Magnus) combined to shut out Cortland, each with an inning pitched. Michalski's second double of the game in the ninth inning off Dunne was the only hit allowed by the trio.
 
With Bond still in the game to begin the seventh inning, Schetter and Justin Teague (North Syracuse/Cicero-North Syracuse) led off with singles and were later brought in on a two-run single from Michalski, which forced Oneonta to make the call to the bullpen. Teague finished 2-for-4 with a walk.
 
Laventure's third hit was an opposite field homer to left in the ninth to make the score 6-3, but Salisbury fanned the next batter to close the game.
 
(Recap by Cortland sports information student intern Kyle Lancto)