Cortland baseball defeats Rochester, 7-2

Box Score

By Kyle Lancto
SUNY Cortland Athletics

LEXINGTON, S.C. - Patrick Schetter (Beacon) extended his hit streak to 23 games with an RBI single in the third inning to tie the score at two en route to Cortland scoring six unanswered runs as the Red Dragons defeated the University of Rochester, 7-2, at Case Western Reserve's Spartan Southern Classic at Lexington County Stadium.

The hit put Schetter into sole possession of fifth place on the Cortland all-time hit streak record list. One more game would tie him with three other players for a share of second. Craig Kerner is the record holder, having hit safely in 26 games in the 1998 season.

Cortland (7-5) took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning after Colin BeVard (Syracuse/West Genesee) led off with a ground-rule double and scored three batters later on a Justin Teague (North Syracuse/Cicero-North Syracuse) two-out RBI single.

BeVard was 3-for-4 and scored twice, which included the game-tying tally on Schetter's single in the third. He also drove in Marcos Perivolaris (Mattituck) in the fourth inning after Perivolaris led off the frame with a double.

Cortland opened each of the first four innings with base hits and scored in three of them, including single runs in both the first and fourth innings. Both of those runs were scored with two-out hits.

Rochester (0-3) took the lead with two runs in the top of the second inning when Corey Ziring singled for one of his two hits on the evening and advanced to second when Aaron Craig reached on an error. The runners moved up to second and third on a wild pickoff throw, and both scored on Tyler Schmidt's two-out, two-run single.

Jason Martin (Turin/South Lewis) was credited with the win, throwing three and two thirds innings and allowing just the two unearned runs on four hits. He was removed with two outs in the fourth inning after retiring the first two batters with a pitch count of 68. He walked two and struck out three. Jarrod Bellinger (Watertown), one of three Cortland relievers, struck out four of the eight batters he faced. He surrendered two hits and allowed no walks in two innings of work. Sal Zafonte (Sayville) also pitched two innings of shutout relief for Cortland, giving up two hits and two walks.

Luke Meyerson started for Rochester and pitched seven innings while allowing seven runs (six earned) on 11 hits. He surrendered just one walk and struck out three while throwing 105 pitches.

Teague had two hits for the second consecutive day, and he registered an RBI in each of his first two at bats. Wyatt Myers (Chittenango), Matthew Personius (Binghamton/Chenango Valley) and Matt Michalski (Buffalo/St. Francis) each provided insurance with RBI hits as Cortland scored two the sixth inning and one in the seventh to help put the game away.

Cortland is off on Thursday before staying in Lexington to take on Brockport to open SUNYAC league play with a three-game series this weekend. The teams are scheduled to meet on Friday morning for a doubleheader starting at 10 a.m. and Saturday for a single game, also at 10 a.m.