Oswego baseball had a rough weekend of play, as they went up against SUNY Cortland, a nationally ranked team, in a series of three games and were soundly beaten in each. 

In the first game they were shut out 10-0 as Oswego failed to get a hit the whole game and were mercy-ruled in seven innings. In the second game they were beat 15-4 and showed a little bit more promise in hitting as Jelani Hamer went 2-4 with a home run and Tishawn Featherstone went 2-3 with a home run as well, but it was not enough and they were once again mercy-ruled in seven innings. 

In their third and final game of the series Lakers were again shut out 10-0 and fell to the Dragons in seven innings. Head coach Scott Landers agreed that his team did not play up to the level he expected. 

“Well, we got our butts kicked. So I would say it wasn’t a very good weekend,” Landers said.

Even though the Lakers have struggled to start the season, Landers believes his team will not be an underdog as the season continues. 

“I never think we’re the underdog and right now we’re just struggling and we happened to go against Cortlan [in the] first weekend, typically it’s the end of the year,” Landers said.

The Lakers’ next games are coming up soon as they play SUNY New Paltz and SUNY Fredonia back-to-back. From this past weekend, Landers knows his team needs to turn it around fast.

“I mean we’ve had to make some changes, but we’re not preparing any differently, more than anything we gotta get our heads right and just fundamentally we gotta do the basics, catch and throw the baseball and hit balls that are over the plate,” Landers said.

The Lakers’ defense has not been up to standard either, as the team has committed 45 errors in 16 games. 

“If you look at the stats defensively were atrocious, disaster, whatever,” Landers said. “We just gotta get better, we haven’t played well up to this point, we haven’t been outside other than games on a field. Once the weather starts getting warmer, and we can get on a field we gotta start playing faster and better.” 

As they prepare for these next games, the focus will be on the team’s struggles according to Landers. 

While Oswego has been in a bit of a slump recently, some of the players have stood out this season so far. One of these players is Kieran Finnegan, star pitcher for the Lakers. This season he has been great, with a 2.67 ERA in 27 innings pitched. 

“For me, just commanding both sides of the plate,” Finnegan said. “With the fastball being able to come in, and just being able to throw pitches strikes and getting split seamers when I need to.” 

Usually pitchers have one or two pitches they can go to to get a strikeout, for Finnegan, his entire arsenal has worked to begin the season. 

“No, I have faith in everything. If I feel I need something with a split I can get it, if I need something with a slider I can get it, and four seam two seam as well. Always good to go,” Finnegan said.

Finnegan also knows what his role on the team is as they try to figure out how to get out of their early season slump.  

“Just keep my team in, let all the hitters hit and whatever they give me I gotta win with,” Finnegan said.

The Lakers are looking to start their winning ways back up again. They have a long road ahead of them, with a string of crucial SUNYAC play games that could put them right back into contention near the top of the conference standings. 

New Paltz and Fredonia are the first steps in the path to doing so. The Blue Devils of Fredonia are also looking to get back to winning ways as they have lost their last three games and have a season record of 4-8. 

The Hawks of New Paltz have lost three of their last four games so they will also be looking to start winning again, New Paltz has a record right now of 6-9. Two teams that are hungry for wins face Oswego on March 31 and April 1 for Fredonia and April 7 and April 8 for New Paltz. 

Photo via: Oswego Athletics