The Oswego State Lakers and SUNY New Paltz Hawks squared off for the last game of the three game series between the two teams at Laker Baseball Field. After sweeping the doubleheader yesterday, Oswego State was able to complete the series sweep today with a 5-4 win.
When the Lakers were trailing 4-2 in the bottom of the 8th inning, it was Wes Randall who came up in the clutch with two outs and delivered a bases clearing triple to take the 5-4 lead.
It was a back-and-forth battle between the two teams all day long. The Lakers struck first in the 2nd inning. Zach Kollar singled to drive in Myles Kutscher for the 1-0 lead. Kollar was then able to make it from first to third base on a wild pitch, setting up Matt Capobianco to single him in for a 2-0 lead.
SUNY New Paltz eventually answered in the top of the 4th inning with Taylor Anderson driving in both Jake Williams and Chris Moran, tying it 2-2.
Tyler Laco opened up the top of the 5th inning with a solo homerun to take a 3-2 lead. The Hawks would continue their momentum into the 7th inning when Mickey Putillo took over on the mound for the Lakers. The Hawks tacked on one more run as Ryan Frost scored as Nick DePietro reached on an error committed by Jordan Giller.
Trailing 4-2 the Lakers were struggling to drive in baserunners since the 2nd inning. In the bottom half of the 7th inning they were able to get singles from Wes Randall and Brian Hamilton to put together a rally. With two outs in the inning, hot hitting Eric Hamilton was intentionally walked to load the bases. The Hawks brought in the lefty specialist Brian LoRusso to face left handed batter Jordan Giller. LoRusso got the lefty on lefty job done by forcing Giller to fly out, and strand the bases loaded.
In the top of the 8th inning Mickey Putillo orchestrated a very quick 1-2-3 inning to stall the lead at just two runs. The bottom half was the Lakers time to rally.
Myles Kutscher opened up the inning with a single to right field. John Barnes was able to force a walk to put runners on first and second with no outs. Zach Kollar did his part with a sacrifice bunt to advance the runners into scoring position, and then Capobianco loaded the bases by reaching on a walk himself.
Hawks reliever Luke Christy then struck out pinch hitter Mike Dellicarri for the second out of the inning. Due up next was leadoff man Wes Randall, who delivered what would turn out to be the game winning hit off Luke Christy.
“We needed a base hit, and I got a good piece of it, I went up there with a clear mind,” Wes Randall said.
Miles Kelly pitched six innings, letting up three earned runs on four hit and striking out two. Mickey Putillo came on in relief in the 7th and was able to close the rest out and earn the win. He struck out three and let up the lone solo homer in the 7th.
Hawks starter Justin Stybel let up two runs on six hits in 6.2 innings pitched.
It was an exciting weekend for the Oswego State baseball team, improving to 17-3 on the season, and 4-2 in SUNYAC play.
“This team all year has shown a lot of resiliency up to this point, and they never died the whole year,” Coach Landers said, “We score a lot of runs late, and they did it again today.”
The Lakers have extended their overall winning streak to nine games, and more importantly have won four straight SUNYAC contests.
“The SUNYACs are a hard conference, and you know we have to come to play for three games every weekend, and it’s a grind,” Coach Landers “It’s a grind to win three games against the teams we have, and we just have to keep going and build momentum”.
The Oswego State Lakers are back at it Tuesday here in Oswego as they take on non-conference opponent Utica College. First pitch is set for 4 p.m.
