The 2012 Oneonta State baseball season came to a close this afternoon with an 8-5 loss to Brockport in the second elimination game of the SUNYAC tournament hosted by SUNY Cortland. Oneonta finishes the season with an overall record of 18-21 while Brockport will face Cortland tomorrow in the championship game of the tournament.
Oneonta staved off elimination in the first game of the day at 10am. The Red Dragons got a strong pitching performance from freshman
Steve Ascher (Cutchogue/Mattituck) along with some timely hitting in eliminating Plattsburgh 5-1. Ascher (2-2) went 6-2/3 innings allowing only one run and six hits with four strikeouts before giving way to junior
Jim Hegmann (Middletown/Pine Bush) in the seventh inning. Hegmann closed out the game for the Red Dragons and picked up his third save of the year.
Oneonta led 2-1 entering the bottom of the eighth inning before pulling away with three runs.
Chris Massaroni (Voorheesville/Voorheesville) and
Zachary Levanduski (Elmira Heights/Thomas Edison) hit back-to-back singles with one out. After a pitching change for the Cardinals,
Cody Hitt (Boonville/Adirondack) drew a walk to load the bases. Massaroni then scored on a wild pitch, which allowed Levanduski and Hitt to move into scoring position.
Rob Peluso (Rensselaer/Columbia) then doubled to left center to drive in both Levanduski and Hitt with the final runs of the inning.
Peluso was 3-for-4 with three runs batted in while Hitt collected two hits and scored two runs to lead Oneonta.
Against Brockport, Oneonta was cruising along with a 3-1 lead before the Golden Eagles put up seven runs in the home half of the fifth inning to take an 8-3 lead. Massaroni hit an RBI double in the first to drive in
Tory Bouyea (Plattsburgh/Plattsburgh) with the game's first run. In the third inning, a ground out by Bouyea knocked in
Charlie MacDowell (Middletown/Minisink Valley) while a throwing error allowed
Kevin Knack (Ghent/Ichabod Crane) to score.
MacDowell doubled in the sixth inning to drive in
Ivan Plata (Guilderland/Guilderland) and Hitt to bring Oneonta back to within three runs at 8-5. Unfortunately that would be it for the Red Dragons as the Brockport pitching staff only allowed one more hit the rest of the way.
Freshman
Alex Mastrianni (Valatie/Ichabod Crane) (3-3) took the loss allowing seven earned runs over 4-2/3 innings.