Auburn, N.Y. – The top-seeded Cortland Red Dragons exploded out of the loser’s bracket to beat second-seeded Ithaca twice to win the NCAA New York Regional championship. Cortland scored eight unearned runs to post an 8-5 win in Saturday’s first game and jumped out to a 9-0 lead en route to a 9-4 win in the decisive second game. The Red Dragons, who will be playing in the College World Series for the eighth time in the last 14 years, will face Mid-Atlantic Region winner Kean Friday in the opening round of the eight-team, double-elimination tournament in Appleton, Wis.
Senior right fielder Dan Maycock (Thomas R. Proctor/Utica) was named tournament MVP after driving in a regional-best 13 runs.
In the opener Cortland scored twice in the top of the seventh to take the lead for good. The Red Dragons had opened a 4-1 lead before the Bombers rallied to take a 5-4 lead in the top of the sixth.
Freshman third baseman Steve Nickel (Lake Ronkonkoma/Sachem North) singled to lead off the inning and the Bombers nearly got out of the sixth without allowing a run, throwing out Nickel on an attempted sacrifice bunt by junior second baseman Joey Russo (Inwood/Lawrence) and picking up the second out on a strikeout. A wild pitch and the team’s fifth error of the game kept the inning alive and set up Maycock , whose two-run single gave him his ninth and 10th RBI’s of the tournament.
Junior catcher
Rob Raux (Frankfort/Ilion) sparked Ithaca’s comeback, singling in a pair of runs in the sixth two batters before senior first baseman
Jason Friedman (Whitney Young/Chicago, Ill.) tied the game with a run-scoring groundout. The Bombers took their first lead an inning later with senior center fielder
Eric Maya (Rome Free Academy/Rome) scoring on a wild pitch.
Cortland scored a pair of unearned runs in both the first and third to take the early lead. In the first junior shortstop
Matt Vitalone (Rome/Rome Free Academy) doubled in a run one batter after a two-out dropped fly ball allowed the first Red Dragon run to score. In the third,
Maycock hit a sacrifice fly and junior shortstop
Matt Vitalone (Rome Free Academy/Rome) singled in a run.
A two-out infield error in the top of the ninth allowed the Red Dragons to score two insurance runs.
Junior
Nick DeVito (Hingham/Hingham, Mass.), who started the game at designated hitter, earned his first win of the season with 2.2 innings of one-hit relief.
Nickel and
Vitalone both had two of Ithaca’s eight hits. Junior outfielder
Anthony Coramato (Notre Dame/Utica) scored three runs.
In game two, Cortland pounded out nine hits over the first three innings to break the game open early. Junior outfielder
Sean Caughey (Cortland/Cortland) collected an RBI single and a two-run single and
Russo added a two-RBI single.
Jweid earned his second win in four days, giving up four runs on six hits over 5.1 innings. He struck out five and didn’t walk a batter. Sophomore
David Limbach (Ronkonkoma/Connetquot) pitched three scoreless innings for his first save.
Raux’s two-run home run in the fourth put Ithaca on the board for the first time. In the fifth,
Maya doubled in a run and scored on an infield single by senior outfielder
Jeremy Peters (Thomas R. Proctor/Utica).
Raux and junior right fielder
Eric Ferguson (Columbia/East Greenbush) both collected two hits for the Bombers.
Game 12 box scoreGame 13 box scoreAll-Tournament TeamMark Montesano, St. John Fisher
Tim Kiely, Trinity (Conn.)
Ben Silvanic, Trinity (Conn.)
Eric Ferguson, Ithaca
Rob Raux, Ithaca
Anthony Coramato, Cortland
Nick DeVito, Cortland
George Jweid, Cortland
Matt Vitalone, Cortland
Mike Zaccardo, Cortland
Dan Maycock, Cortland – Tournament MVP
