Game 1 box | Game 2 box
The SUNY Oneonta baseball team went on the road yesterday for a must win doubleheader and came away with a sweep against New Paltz in SUNYAC action. The two wins for the Red Dragons put them in a solid spot for the conference tournament as they are currently 5-4 in the SUNYAC and sitting in second place behind Cortland, who is 11-1 and clinched the host site for the conference tournament with a sweep yesterday against Plattsburgh. Cortland's only conference loss is to Oneonta, who defeated its rival last Monday 4-1.
Oneonta still has a doubleheader against Oswego to play plus they need to complete a suspended game against Fredonia coming up this weekend. The top four teams qualify for the SUNYAC tournament, which will take place Friday-Sunday, May 6-8.
Oneonta (24-8) got two solid pitching performances from junior #Dave Filak (Scotia/Burnt Hills)# and senior #Brett Meservey (Catskill/Catskill)# in winning the games by the scores of 11-6 and 11-2.
Filak earned the win in game one to raise his record to 6-0 on the season. He pitched seven strong innings allowing only five hits while recording nine strikeouts. Filak lowered his team-leading ERA to 2.36 and raised his strikeout total to 74 in only 42 innings pitched this spring.
Meservey was the game two winner as he is now 3-2 this spring. He went seven innings allowing seven hits while striking out four Hawks.
The offense combined for 27 hits in the two games including a five-hit day for sophomore #Kevin Knack (Ghent /Ichabod Crane)#. In game one Knack had a triple and three runs batted in and followed with four hits and three runs scored in game two.
Sophomore #Mike Center# collected three hits in game two while driving in three runs and scoring a pair of runs.
The Red Dragons had two, four-run innings in game one while they added a four-run and a five-run inning in game two. The five-run inning in game two gave them an 11-0 lead entering the home half of the sixth inning. Doubles by senior #Dan Randall (Salem/Salem)# and sophomore #Matt Whelehan# drove in two runs each in the big sixth inning that put the game out of reach.
In the first game Oneonta benefitted from six New Paltz errors that led to its big innings. The big blow in the four-run ninth was the triple by Knack that cleared the bases.
