LEXINGTON, S.C. – The nationally 17th-ranked Cortland baseball team dropped a 12-6 decision to 20th-ranked Marietta College in the first of a three-day, three-game series versus the Pioneers at the Lexington County Stadium in South Carolina.
Cortland fell to 5-4 with the loss and Marietta improved to 6-4. The teams will play Friday at 3 p.m. (time moved an hour later due to the weather forecast) and Saturday at noon in Lexington.
Dylan Mackenzie (Canandaigua/Canandaigua Academy) went 2-for-4 with a double, walk and three RBI and
Matthew Krafft (Cornwall) was 2-for-4 with a double, two RBI and two runs for the Red Dragons.
Mat Bruno (Rye) finished 2-for-5 with an RBI and
Dylan Tierney (East Greenbush/Columbia) was 1-for-3 with two walks. Cortland finished with 10 hits but left 11 runners on base.
Will McCarthy (Farmingdale) received a no-decision as Cortland starter, allowing two runs on five hits with no walks and two strikeouts in four and a third innings.
Zack Zarrilli (Farmingdale) took the loss after giving up three runs in one inning of relief.
Marietta's 14-hit attack was led by Brett Carson who went 4-for-5 with three runs scored and Ty Davis, who finished 3-for-3 with a homer, two walks, two RBI and two runs. Nick Bonnizzio went 2-for-5 with two RBI, Kail Hill was 2-for-4 with an RBI, and Alex Richter homered, walked, drove in three runs and scored twice.
Trent Valentine started for the Pioneers and earned the win despite allowing four runs on eight hits with two walks and two strikeouts in five and a third innings. Kail Hill, Marietta's second reliever, pitched three hitless and scoreless innings with four strikeouts and two walks for the save.
Cortland took a 2-0 lead after three innings on a Mackenzie RBI double in the first and a Bruno run-scoring single in the third. Marietta tied the game on Davis' two-run homer in the top of the fourth.
The teams combined to score 10 runs in the sixth inning. Marietta put up six in the top of the frame on a Cole Yeager RBI single, back-to-back bases-loaded walks by Braden Shepherd and CJ Elias, a Hill sacrifice fly and a Bonnizzio two-run single. The Red Dragons responded with four in the bottom half of the sixth on a Krafft two-run double and Mackenzie two-run single to cut their deficit to 6-4.
The Red Dragons left the bases loaded in the seventh, and in the top of the eighth Marietta mounted a four-run inning, all with two outs. Hill and Bonnizzio each singled and Richter hit a three-run homer, and later in the inning a run scored on a wild pitch.
