The SUNY Oneonta baseball team swept the Cazenovia College Wildcats in a two game set to claim their first wins of the 2017 season. The Red Dragons offense exploded for 24 runs while their pitching staff held the Wildcats to three runs in the doubleheader.
 
In the first game the Red Dragons struck early in the top of first inning, putting up five runs. Junior Brandon Torres (Highland Mills/Monroe-Woodbury) opened up the game with a single and immediately stole second base. Classmate Dalton Beatty (Atwater/Atwater) singled to move Torres to third and senior Sean Mullins (Vestal/Vestal) grounded hit the ball to the right side to score Torres for the first run of the game. With Beatty in scoring position, junior Chris Saitch (Kingston/Kingston) reached on an error by the third basemen, the result of the error scored Beatty for the second run of the game. Senior Sage Cheren (Bronx/Riverdale Kingsbridge Academy) singled to score Saitch to give Oneonta a 3-0 lead. The Red Dragons wrapped up their scoring in the first with a two run double by Michael Grudzinski (Islip/Islip).
 
Grudzinski finished the game 3-3 with a walk and two stolen bases. S. Mullins was 4-5 with a double and four runs batted in. Torres went 2-5 with two runs scored and a run batted in. Beatty went 2-4 with a triple and two runs scored.
 
Junior Nicholas Ponesse (Newburgh/Valley Central) earned his first win of the season after pitching a complete game while striking out five batters and only allowing an earned run off of six hits.
 
In the second game of the double header the Red Dragons sent out sophomore Tikoda Sitar in his first appearance of the season. Sitar pitched six solid innings for Oneonta only allowing a single hit in the top of the 5^th inning.  Sitar was relieved in the top of the 7^th inning when sophomore Zachary Zimardo (Massapequa Park/Massapequa) closed the book on the Wildcats with a 1-2-3 inning. Sitar improved to 1-0 on the season with a 0.00 ERA.
 
The Oneonta offense was ignited in the second inning when the Red Dragons batted around in the order to score six runs off of four hits and two walks. S. Mullins finished the game batting 3-3 with a walk and a pair of runs batted in. Sophomore Mickey Mullins (Vestal/Vestal) came in the game in the fourth inning and went 2-2 with a double and two runs batted in.
 
The two victories of 11-3 in the first game and 13-0 in the second game improved Oneonta to 2-3 on the season and the two losses dropped the Wildcats to 1-5. The Red Dragons continue their spring trip in Florida with a pair of games against Medaille College Friday, March 10^th at 4:00pm.