BALTIMORE, MD. – The Cortland baseball team was defeated in the first two games of the Baltimore Invitational, losing to Roanoke, 9-0, on Saturday afternoon, and then to host school Johns Hopkins, 7-2, later in the evening.
The nationally seventh-ranked Red Dragons (4-4) will look to bounce back on Sunday at 11 a.m. against Marietta in their final game of the tournament.
Roanoke 9, Cortland 0
Danny Checkosky pitched seven and one third shutout innings in relief for the Maroons, and Carter Plunkett and Sam Watson supplied two hits apiece, for Roanoke (6-4). The Maroons used a seven-run sixth inning to break open a tight game and cruise to the victory.
Senior
Zack Durant (Verona/V-V-S) pitched five innings for Cortland, allowing three earned runs while striking out five Maroon batters. Sophomore
Liam Krasney (Greenville) allowed one hit and one run in two and two thirds innings in relief. Seniors
Joseph Dwy (Hillsdale/Taconic Hills) and
Nick Shepheard (Wappingers Falls/Roy C. Ketcham), juniors
James Varian (Hopewell Junction/Trinity-Pawling),
Ben Rhodes (Amsterdam), and
Brian VanBeveren (Camillus/West Genesee) each had one hit, while freshman
Adam Mieczkowski (Vestal) recorded his first career hit for the Red Dragons.
Checkosky and Durant were locked in a pitchers' duel through five innings, with the Maroons leading 1-0 after Plunkett reached base on a Cortland throwing error and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly from Watson in the fourth inning.
Roanoke broke the game open in the bottom of the sixth with RBI hits from Watson, Plunkett, and P.K. Cocolis. Will Merriken provided a clutch two-run double down the right field line, after entering the game as a pinch hitter, to increase Roanoke's lead to 8-0.
Plunkett added a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the eighth inning to complete the scoring, while Cortland struggled to get anything going offensively against Checkosky. Cortland was only able to muster up four hits against the freshman right-hander, who commanded the strike zone and induced Red Dragon hitters into four strikeouts in his seven-plus innings of work.
Johns Hopkins 7, Cortland 2
Matthew Dillard was dominant in pitching a complete game, allowing only two unearned runs while striking out 10 Red Dragons. A third-inning rally from the Johns Hopkins offense helped to provide him with enough offense to cement the victory.
Matthew Ritchie was a force in the Johns Hopkins lineup, going 3-for-4 with one RBI, and Dillon Bowman drove in two runs with a crucial hit in the third inning.
Varian paced the Red Dragon offense, going 2-for-4 with a RBI, and
Antonio Pragana (Hopewell Junction/John Jay) and
Anthony Donofrio (Massapequa/St. Anthony's) each had one hit for Cortland.
The Blue Jays scored first in the bottom of the second inning when Mike Ainsworth dropped a two-out single into right field to score A.J. King, who had doubled to deep center field to lead off the inning.
Cortland took advantage of a Blue Jay error to tie the score as
Andrew Michalski (Buffalo/St. Francis) reached third base on a dropped line drive and Donofrio drove him in with a sacrifice fly one batter later.
Johns Hopkins broke through for four runs in the next half inning, with Bowman providing a two-run single to left field, and then executing a double steal of second and home with James Ingram for another run as the highlights of the inning.
Cortland pulled a run closer when Pragana singled, advanced to third on a throwing error by Dillard, and eventually scored on an infield single to second base from Varian in the sixth inning, but Cortland could not capitalize any further from that opportunity.
The Blue Jays tacked on two more insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth inning, but the real story of the game was Dillard, who managed to keep Cortland hitters off balance for the entire game. He surrendered just four hits and did not give up a walk in addition to his 10 strikeouts.
(Recap by Cortland student intern Mitch Binda)
