The Oswego State Lakers and Brockport Golden Eagles took the field today at Laker Baseball Field to start the day’s doubleheader. Oswego State was able to finish the key sweep of Brockport with strong defensive play and keeping their bats hot through the majority of both games.
Oswego State took the first game yesterday afternoon by a score of 8-2, and with it claiming sole possession of first place in the SUNYAC, breaking the tie with Brockport.
Today’s first game was a pitching clinic for the first five innings. Starters Robert Donnelly of Oswego State and Sam McCumiskey of Brockport completely shut down their opponents with the help of strong defenses behind them.
Both squads were threatening to score early in the game through strategic baserunning and fielding errors. Through for the first five and a half innings, neither team could get any runs across the plate.
In the bottom of the 6th, Brian Hamilton lead off with a single to get the biggest inning of the game started. In the next at-bat, his younger brother, Eric Hamilton, took a McCumiskey pitch over the left field fence to break the scoreless tie. This
John Barnes hit an RBI single later in the inning to extend the lead to 3-0 and knock McCumiskey out of the game. In the next at bat, Zach Kollar hit a 2 run triple to bring the lead to 5-0 for Oswego.
Brockport got their bats hot in the 7th, and final, inning of the game scoring two runs, but couldn’t complete the comeback as the Lakers took the first game of the day by a 5-2 score to extend their win streak to 14.
Coach Scott Landers had one message for his team in such a close game that went down to the wire.
“Win,” Landers said. “The mindset going that deep in a game scoreless is to win. Donnelly battled for us and Eric got us on the board. We were able to get three more after that.”
The second game of the day proved to be the polar opposite of the first, completely dominated by hitting.
Brockport got on the board in the top of the first with an RBI single from Chris Davis, to continue their timely hitting off of Oswego State’s starter Tim Cronin.
Oswego answered in the bottom of the first inning when Eric Hamilton crushed a ball to left-center field to give the Lakers a 2-1 lead. This home run would tie Eric for most in a single season by an Oswego State Laker. The junior is now one away from breaking Derek Myers’ record.
The back-and-forth battle for the next inning as well, and the Lakers were eventually leading 6-2 at the end of the third. By the time the fourth inning came around, Oswego broke the game open.
RBI singles by Brian Hamilton and Myles Kutscher, and an RBI double off the bat of Mike Dellicarri gave the Lakers a 10-3 lead at the end of the fourth. This allowed Coach Landers to be relieved of some pressure making decisions for the rest of the game.
Tim Cronin was allowing hits, but not many runs, and that led Landers to feel comfortable enough to leave in his starting pitcher so he didn’t have to over extend his bullpen before the late season run taking place of the next couple weeks.
“Timmy [Cronin] looked shaky for a couple innings, but we got settled down and he was able to last,” Landers said.
The huge margin was a positive for the Laker reserves, as it opened up an opportunity for certain players to have success.
One player who came in late and had great success was Zach Whelan. He made an incredible play at shortstop and got his first hit on the season. He also was on the receiving end of praise from his head coach.
“Whelan had a great play and got his first hit of the season,” Landers said. “The big lead let us get some guys in and it paid off.”
The score ballooned to 14-4 by the end of the game, and it gave Oswego a two game lead over Brockport in the SUNYAC. This win would extend the Lakers’ win streak to 15 games.
Oswego State is back in action again on Tuesday against the Clarkson University Golden Knights on the road.
