THOUSAND OAKS, CALIF. – California Lutheran scored nine runs over the middle three innings and the host Kingsmen defeated Cortland, 10-4, on Friday afternoon in the opening game of a three-game, non-league weekend baseball series.
 
Cortland (4-5), playing the first of seven games on its Spring Break trip to California, is ranked 20th nationally in Division III. Cal Lutheran, which is receiving votes in the latest D3baseball.com poll, improved to 7-4.
 
Dylan Mackenzie (Canandaigua/Canandaigua Academy) finished 3-for-3 with an RBI and JJ DeLawder (Hyde Park/Franklin D. Roosevelt) was 3-for-5 with a double and two RBI. Dylan Tierney (East Greenbush/Columbia) doubled twice and drove in a run in two plate appearances off the bench. Mat Bruno (Rye), who reached the career 200-hit mark in Cortland's previous game versus Elmira, finished 2-for-4 with an RBI.
 
Gordon Richardson was 2-for-3 with a walk, RBI and three runs scored and Troy Anderson finished 2-for-4 for the Kingsmen. Luke Wechsler allowed nine hits but only two runs over six innings for the win. He struck out seven and walked one.
 
Cortland led 2-0 after three innings as starter Luis Misla (Tampa, FL/Riverview) retired the first 11 batters he faced. The Red Dragons scored twice in the third on RBI singles by Mackenzie and DeLawder. The hosts got a run back in the fourth on an error, followed by four runs on only one hit, along with three walks and two errors, in the fifth and four runs on three hits with one error and one walk in the sixth. Misla allowed one hit and three walks and fanned seven in four and a third innings. He gave up three runs, two earned.
 
Cal Lutheran added a run in the eighth to make it 10-2. Cortland picked up two runs in the ninth on a Tierney RBI double and DeLawder RBI single.