CORTLAND, N.Y. – Geneseo came back after losing the first game to claim the second and third contests and the Knights won the SUNYAC title in the league tournament best-of-three finals series versus host Cortland.
 
Geneseo (16-8) earned the league's automatic berth into the NCAA Division III tournament. Cortland finishes the season with a 20-10 record. The two teams played for the title for the third straight season. Geneseo won the 2018 SUNYAC tournament and Cortland was the 2019 champion. The 2020 season was canceled in mid-March. The league moved temporarily this spring to a divisional format and best-of-three semifinal and final series, with Cortland winning the East title and Geneseo the West champion, and each winning semifinal series last weekend.
 
Three Cortland players – Kelly O'Gorman (Clifton Park/Shenendehowa), Alyssa Finno (Hurley/Kingston) and Cailey Cuttita (Clifton Park/Shenendehowa) – were named to the all-tournament team. O'Gorman was also recognized as the SUNYAC Softball Elite 20 Award winner for having the highest overall grade point average among players at the SUNYAC finals site.
 
Geneseo's Anna Johnston was named tournament MVP after going a combined 7-for-12 with five RBI over Saturday's three games. Other all-tournament selections included Geneseo's Taylor Riccardi, Leah VanDerwarker, Lauren Kersch and Elizabeth Eberhardt, Buffalo State's Sydney McIntosh and Caitlyn Parsons, and Oneonta's Hunter Van Arnum.
 
Cortland 2, Geneseo 1
 
Cortland took a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series behind Karlee Weeden (Maybrook/Valley Central), who allowed six hits and one unearned run over seven innings. She struck out five and did not walk anyone. Nicole Schwartz started for Geneseo and gave up only two hits and two runs, one earned, over six innings with four strikeouts and one walk.
 
Johnston was the lone player for either team with multiple hits, finishing 2-for-3. Lexi Szesnat (Colonie) and Finno each were 1-for-3 for Red Dragons.
 
All of the game's scoring came in the second inning. Geneseo got its run on a Riccardi single, a Katherine Hayes sac bunt, and a Melissa Triolo single that also included an error. Cortland answered in the bottom of the inning when Finno led off with a triple and scored on a Caputo grounder. Caputo was safe on the play due to an error, and she came around to score on two groundouts and an error.
 
Cortland didn't threaten against Schwartz the rest of the way, with its only base runner over the next four innings coming on a passed ball after a strikeout. Geneseo's best threat came in the top of the seventh. Kersch reached on a one-out pinch-hit single and Johnston singled to put runners on first and second. The next batter hit a ball into left, but Cortland was able to get a force out at third for the second out, and a lineout to left ended the game.
 
Geneseo 12, Cortland 7 (10 inn.)
 
Cortland fell behind 5-0 in the top of the first, but worked its way back and eventually tied the game with a three-run fifth inning that included a Tori Reich (Cornwall) RBI single and a Megan Weber's (Lockport/Starpoint) two-run homer. After the Weber homer, however, Kersch retired 14 straight batters through the end of the ninth inning.
 
In the top of the 10th, Hayes led off with a double and went to third on a Johnston single. Rachel Mihlstin's RBI groundout to second gave the Knights the lead and, following a walk, Samantha Seeger singled in a run to make it 9-7. With two outs, Riccardi hit a three-run homer to left to complete the five-run inning. Cortland loaded the bases in the bottom of the 10th but couldn't score.

Geneseo's five-run first was highlighted by a Kersch sac fly and two-run singles by Olivia Fazio and Johnston. Cortland got two runs back in the bottom of the inning on Szesnat and Finno RBI single. The teams each scored twice in the third – Geneseo on a Johnston two-run double and Cortland on back-to-back RBI singles from Finno and Sabrina Caputo (Westbury/W.T. Clarke).
 
Kersch pitched the final nine and a third innings after entering in the first and allowed five runs, four earned, on 10 hits in the victory. Courtney Kane (Yaphank/Bellport) started for Cortland and allowed five unearned runs in two thirds of an inning. Lindsey Richards (Liverpool/Cicero-North Syracuse) struck out nine batters over the final nine and a third innings. She gave up two runs between the second and ninth innings before being tagged for the five runs in the 10th.
 
Johnston finished 3-for-5 with four RBI, Riccardi had two hits and drove in three runs, and Hayes was 2-for-3 with two runs scored for Geneseo. Five Red Dragons finished with multiple hits – Finno went 3-for-5 with two RBI, Szesnat and Caputo each were 3-for-5 with one RBI, with Szesnat scoring twice, Weber went 2-for-5 with two RBI and Reich was 2-for-5 with an RBI.
 
Geneseo 9, Cortland 5
 
Cortland held two early leads, taking a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first on a Szesnat two-run single and a 3-2 lead in the second on an error after an O'Gorman single that allowed Weber to score. Geneseo had tied the game on an Angela Van Pelt two-run homer in the top of the second.
 
Geneseo took the lead for good with a four-run third inning. Johnston doubled home a run to tie the game at 3-3 and VanDerwarker followed a few batters later with a three-run double. Cortland got back two of those runs in the bottom of the third on O'Gorman's two-run single.
 
Cortland had a good chance to tie or take the lead in the bottom of the sixth. Cuttita singled to lead off the inning and Jess Miller (Campbell Hall/Goshen) hit a one-out single to put runners on first and second. With pinch runners on both bases, Finno hit a single up the middle, but what began as a promising play took a bad turn for the Red Dragons. Geneseo threw out the runner trying to score from second, and then threw out another runner trying to advance to third to end the inning with an unconventional double play that kept the score at 6-5.
 
Geneseo rode that momentum and scored three key insurance runs in the top of the seventh – one on an error during a sac bunt and the others on RBI singles by VanDerwarker and Riccardi. Cortland managed only a two-out Weber single in the bottom of the seventh.
 
Schwartz entered in relief in the bottom of the first and earned the win as she was the pitcher of record for Geneseo when the Knights took the lead in the third. She gave up three runs on seven hits in two and two thirds innings. Eberhardt pitched four scoreless innings for the save, allowing three hits and one walk. Weeden, after throwing 97 pitches in the opener, threw another 149 pitches in the final game and gave up nine runs, eight earned, in six and two thirds innings.
 
Each team finished with 13 hits. Riccardi went 4-for-5 with an RBI, VanDerwarker was 3-for-5 with four RBI, and Johnston was 2-for-4 with an RBI for Geneseo. Cuttita and Weber each finished 2-for-3, O'Gorman was 2-for-4 with a walk and two RBI, and Miller and Finno each went 2-for-4 for Cortland.