Cortland Sports Information Department
CORTLAND, N.Y. - The Cortland baseball team finished second at the four-team NCAA Division III regional, hosted by the Red Dragons at Wallace Field, to end the season with a 34-13 record and a tie for 17th place in the national tournament. Cortland briefly kept its regional hopes alive Sunday with a 7-2 win over defending national champion Eastern Connecticut State, but the Red Dragons' season came to a close in the following game with a 15-0 loss to Ithaca in the championship round.
Cortland was making its NCAA Division III-record 30th straight tournament appearance. Cortland reached the 30-win mark for the 18th straight season (not counting the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season) and the 28th time in 29 full seasons.
Ithaca (31-14) advances to the NCAA Division III best-of-three super regional round May 26-27 versus an opponent to be determined.
Three Red Dragons - Matthew Krafft (Cornwall), Will McCarthy (Farmingdale) and Dylan Beers (Woodbury/Monroe-Woodbury) - were named to the regional all-tournament team, along with Jason Claiborn and Nathan Furino from Eastern Connecticut and six Ithaca players - Kyle Lambert, Louis Fabbo, Colin Leyner, Colin Shashaty, Garrett Bell and MVP Ethan Rothstein.
Cortland 7, Eastern Connecticut St. 2
McCarthy threw a complete-game six-hitter to improve to 7-1 on the season in a game that lasted only an hour and 44 minutes. He allowed two runs, struck out two and walked one. Hunter Holliday (Camden) was 2-for-3 with a walk, Krafft finished 2-for-4, and JJ DeLawder (Hyde Park/Franklin D. Roosevelt) and Zachary Kringdon (Larchmont/Mamaroneck) each drove in two runs.
Cortland took the lead in the first on singles by Chris Bonacci (Syracuse/West Genesee) and Krafft and a Mat Bruno (Rye) RBI fielder's choice. The Red Dragons sent 10 batters to the plate in a five-run third inning to take a 6-0 lead. With the bases loaded, Adam Mieczkowski (Vestal) was hit by a pitch to force in a run and, with two outs, DeLawder walked to drive in a run. Kringdon followed with a two-run single to left, and the final run scored on a wild pitch.
Eastern Connecticut (35-12) recorded single runs in the fourth and fifth innings to close to within 6-2. Matt Malcom hit a solo homer in the fourth and Noah Plantamuro singled in the run in the fifth. Cortland closed out the scoring in the bottom of the fifth when Mieczkowski led off with a double, went to third on a groundout and scored on DeLawder's sac fly to right.
Dylan Scudder started for the visiting Warriors and allowed six runs on five hits with two walks and a strikeout in two and two thirds innings. Furino, who won in relief the previous day versus St. Joseph's (Long Island), pitched the final five and a third innings against the Red Dragons and gave up one run on four hits with one strikeout.
Ithaca 15, Cortland 0
Bell limited Cortland to just three hits over eight scoreless innings for the win. He struck out four batters and didn't walk anyone. Matt Chase pitched a scoreless ninth. Andrew Michalski (Buffalo/St. Francis) went 2-for-3 and Dylan Mackenzie (Canandaigua/Canandaigua Academy) was 1-for-2 to account for Cortland's three hits.
Ithaca finished with 17 hits. Rothstein was 3-for-4 with a homer, two doubles, two RBI and three runs. Fabbo finished 3-for-5 with a homer, three RBI and two runs and Collin Feeney was 3-for-4 with a double, walk, RBI and three runs. Shashaty was 2-for-4 with walk and Mike Nauta finished 2-for-5 with an RBI.
Ithaca scored at least once in each of the first five innings. Matt Fabian singled in a run in the first, and the Bombers' five-run second featured Rothstein and Feeney RBI doubles, a Fabbo RBI single and a Garrett Callaghan two-run single. Rothstein doubled with two outs and eventually scored on a wild pitch in the third to make it 7-0, Nauta tripled in a run in the fourth, and Rothstein hit a solo homer in the fifth to push the lead to 9-0. Fabbo's two-run homer and Riley Brawdy's grand slam accounted for the Bombers' runs in a six-run eighth inning.
Cortland's only serious threat came in the top of the fourth trailing 7-0. DeLawder was hit by a pitch with two outs and Mackenzie singled to left center, but Bell struck out the next batter to end the inning. Cortland managed just one runner after that on a Michalski one-out single in the eighth.
