New Paltz and Cortland Weekends

New Paltz traveled to Chip Cummings Field for the home opener against the Cards on March 23rd. When I first saw this game on our schedule I thought that there was no way that we would be playing. As I recall, last year we had to reschedule our New Paltz games because of weather. When we finally made up the games there was still snow on the ground this year was completely different with a relatively dry winter. This was the first conference series for the Cards since winning two against Fredonia. In the opening game the Cards faced last years SUNYAC pitcher of the year Chris Chismar. Chismar didn’t lose many games last year but we were lucky enough to give him a loss. With the success that we had last year against him we tried to bring the same mindset into this game. Chismar typically strikes out a lot of people and our goal was to work the count in each at bat to quickly raise his pitch count. Bobby Piser took the challenge of facing one of our conference best by pitching a solid 5 2/3 innings giving up 2 runs. When Piser exited the game so did Chismar with the game locked at 2-2. Mike Doughtie once again came in and shut the door on New Paltz by pitching the next 4 1/3 scoreless innings. It wasn’t until the bottom of the 10th when the Cards, led by Casey Brighton, won the game with a walk off single. In the second game Tyler Green took the mound pitching a complete game. Tyler kept New Paltz off balanced throughout the game but the offense failed to provide him any run support as New Paltz won 5-0. The rubber match wasn’t much better offensively, for much of the game it seemed like our bats would never wake up. Going into the bottom of the 8th we trailed 2-1 and with the help of Mike Vargues and Pedro Gonzalez’s RBI singles we took the lead 3-2. Brian Burns was then handed the ball to go out and close the game for us. He went 1-2-3 in the 9th for the save and more importantly a series win.

The following weekend we traveled to the nationally ranked team Cortland in hopes to prove a point. Last year Cortland took three heartbreakers from us, winning all three games by two or less runs. History was not on our side as we headed down seeing as how Plattsburgh State has never won at Cortland. Our goal was to show Cortland that we could play with them and that we plan on seeing them in playoffs. In the first game, Cortland got off to a fast start scoring three runs in the first. That was plenty enough support for starter Aaron Schuldt as he pitched 7 innings, striking out 14 batters. After the first game Coach Doorey stressed that Friday was over and done with and that tomorrow was a new day. Senior Tyler Greene was handed the ball on Saturday, pitching the game of his life. Throughout the whole game he continued to keep Cortland hitters guessing. The only thing he needed was run support from his offense and he got that in the 5th when we struck for two runs. Two runs typically is not enough against a powerhouse like Cortland but Tyler finished them off pitching a complete game shut out. The final score was 2-0 making this the first time Plattsburgh has won at Cortland State. The final game on Saturday wasn’t pretty, as I’d like to say we pissed off all of the Cortland players as they pounded 18 hits wining the game 14-1.

After these two weekends the Cards took a big step in positioning for the playoffs. With half of the conference games in the book we need to continue to play good baseball. That means the bats need to wake up to take the pressure off of our pitchers. The next two weeks will determine our fate for the playoffs as we face Brockport and Oneonta. We hope to see all of our fans and parents for senior weekend against Brockport. Wish us luck as we battle to get back into the playoffs!