Posted: May 25, 2015
Cortland advances to the best-of-3 national championship series and will face either Wisconsin-La Crosse or Trinity (Texas) starting Tuesday. Trinity and UW-L, each now with one loss, will play for the Pool B title 11 a.m. Tuesday. About 50 minutes after that game the winner will play Cortland in Game 1 of the 3-game finals. Game 2 and, if needed, Game 3 of the final series will be held Wednesday.
Ranked first nationally in Div. III, Cortland improved to 43-4 with the win and tied a school record for wins in a season set during a 43-9-1 season in 2005. Cortland is guaranteed to be at least national runner-up – a level the Red Dragons achieved in both 2005 and 2010.
Alex Weingarten (East Rockaway/Lynbrook) threw a complete game to improve to 9-1 on the season. He allowed eight hits, two walks and four runs and struck out nine batters. He retired 16 of 17 batters he faced from the last out of the third inning through the end of the eighth.
Cortland trailed 3-0 after four innings and was limited to just one hit in that span by Frostburg starter Ryan Callahan. The Red Dragons, however, put up 11 runs on nine hits, two walks and a hit batter in the fifth while sending 15 hitters to the plate. Cortland added two runs in the sixth and four runs in the ninth.
Six Red Dragons registered multiple hits and six drove in multiple runs. Matthew Michalski (Buffalo/St. Francis) went 4-for-4 with two RBI and two runs scored. Fabio Ricci (Hawthorne/Westlake) was 3-for-5 with a triple, double, three RBI and three runs scored as he finished a homer shy of hitting for the cycle. Ricci led off the fifth inning with a double and also tripled in two runs later in the inning.
Conrad Ziemendorf (Penfield/Webster Schroeder) was 2-for-4 with a double and three RBI and Mark DeMilio (Valhalla) went 2-for-5 with a walk, RBI and two runs. Anthony Simon (Suffern/Don Bosco Prep (NJ)) finished 2-for-6 with two RBI and two runs, Austin Clock (Niskayuna) was 2-for-6 with an RBI, and Nick Hart (Fredonia) ended with three RBI and two runs scored. Cortland finished with 18 hits against six Frostburg pitchers.
Ricky Castro went 3-for-4 and Nick Walker and Lane Farmer were each 2-for-4 with an RBI for the Bobcats. Frostburg finished the season 43-9 to set a school record for wins and was making its first World Series appearance.
Frostburg took a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the third. Farmer singled and was bunted to second, and JT Tipton drew a walk. Weingarten struck out the next batter for the second out, but Castro reached on an infield single when he hit a ball up the middle that Cortland couldn't get a force out on. Zach Weiss followed with a two-run single to left and Walker hit an RBI single to right.
The Cortland fifth started with Ricci's double, a Michalski single and a Justin Teague (Syracuse/Cicero-North Syracuse) hit-by-pitch. DeMilio and Hart each drew bases-loaded walks to drive in runs. With one out, Simon hit a two-run single to put Cortland up 4-3 and Ziemendorf hit an RBI double to left.
Clock followed with an RBI single and Ricci hit a two-run triple to straightaway center. Michalski singled home a run, and three batters later Hart hit a two-run single. Cortland's 11-run frame was its best of the season, eclipsing a 10-run inning versus Marietta during a game in Florida.
Ricci and Michalski singled in runs in the sixth, and the four-run ninth featured two-run singles by Vinny Bomasuto (Dunkirk) and Ziemendorf.
Box Score
Full Game Replay (NCAA.com)
Cortland Postgame Press Conference
Tournament Interactive Bracket
