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Brockport impresses in runner-up performance By Chris Winkler The College at Brockport men’s baseball team saw its hopes for a trip to the Division III NCAA tournament come to an end with a 12-5 loss to Cortland in the SUNYAC championship game, but the season isn’t over for the Golden Eagles. After dropping their opener to Oneonta Friday, Brockport (23-17-1) stormed back while facing elimination. They crushed Plattsburgh, 12-0, and then got the last laugh against Oneonta by eliminating the Red Dragons with a 10-7 win. But Sunday belonged to the Red Dragons of Cortland. Ranked No. 2 in the country, Cortland (36-3) completed the season sweep of all SUNYAC opponents with an extremely impressive performance in the conference tournament. The seven-run win over Brockport was the smallest margin of victory of the weekend. “We weren’t afraid or intimidated,” head coach Justin Beach said. “Cortland just outplayed us.” It was Cortland’s fourth straight SUNYAC title and extended their school-record winning streak to 32 games. Brockport trailed early 2-0, but rallied in the top of the third, taking full advantage of Cortland miscues. With runners on first and second and nobody out, Jason Michaels gave himself up to sacrifice both runners into scoring position. Cortland catcher Mike Zaccardo threw the ball into right field allowing one run to score and still get both runners into scoring position. Jared Perham’s RBI groundout gave Brockport a 3-2 lead, which was followed by Rob Maxwell’s bloop single to extend the Golden Eagles’ lead to two. The lead would be short-lived, though, as Cortland would add three runs in the third inning and four more in the fourth to put the game away for good. All is not lost for a young Brockport team that surpassed expectations all year long. The team fought hard all year long and it showed the final day of the season when they needed to sweep Oswego, and it showed Saturday, when they knew a loss would end their season. “Our goal was to get better every day and we did,” Beach said. The Golden Eagles can show how much they’ve improved at the ECAC Upstate Tournament. Five teams from New York that didn’t make the NCAA Tournament will compete at Oneonta. Joining the Red Dragons and Brockport are the Rochester Institute of Technology, St. John Fisher and Oswego. Brockport is ranked No. 3 in the tournament and the Golden Eagles will take on Oneonta May 9. The double-elimination tournament will continue May 10, with the Championship May 11. After the season, Brockport will lose five players, but will certainly miss each one of them. Jared Perham had just 34 at-bats entering his final year at Brockport. This year, the senior went out leading the team with a .378 batting average and a team-high 27 walks. Rob Maxwell was second in batting with a .365 average and compiled a 2.86 ERA. He was third on the team in innings pitched. Matt Beach had a bit of a down year at the plate, but led the team with four saves and posted a 3.95 ERA. Tim Mascari, the workhorse, logged more innings than anyone on the team on his way to a 3-3 season with a 3.41 ERA. Dan Ferraro had more relief appearances than anyone else on the team. “The seniors will finish right around 100 wins and that’s really great,” Beach estimated. |
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