BUFFALO, N.Y. - Shannon Scotto's (Putnam Valley/Lakeland) RBI single put Cortland ahead in the top of the ninth as the Red Dragons defeated host Buffalo State, 3-2, to salvage a split of a doubleheader in SUNYAC softball play. The Bengals won the opener, 10-4.
 
Cortland improved to 9-1 in the SUNYAC and is 13-13 overall, while Buffalo State is now 16-12 overall and 10-2 in the league. The Red Dragons travel to Oneonta on Friday and New Paltz on Saturday for league doubleheaders. New Paltz (10-0) and Buffalo State lead the conference with 20 points apiece, followed by Cortland with 18 and Oneonta (8-2) with 16.
 
Buffalo State 10, Cortland 4
 
Cortland held early leads of 1-0 in the first and 2-1 in the third, but Buffalo State scored four in the fourth to take the lead and later put the game away with four unearned runs in the sixth.
 
Madison Lucas went the distance for the Bengals, allowing four runs on nine hits with five strikeouts and a walk. McKenna Barry (Clifton Park/Shenendehowa) gave up five runs, three earned, in four innings to take the loss. Sophia Wahl (Schuylerville) allowed five runs, but only one earned, over two innings in the circle.
 
Buffalo State finished with 15 hits. Ella Stewart went 3-for-4 with two RBI and two runs scored and Lexi Quagliana was 3-for-4 with two RBI. Izzy Pezdek and Mya Hurley each finished 2-for-4 with a double. Pezdek drove in two runs and scored twice and Hurley had an RBI and two runs scored. Deme Kellogg finished 2-for-2 with a walk and two runs.
 
Maggie Cummings (Holland Patent) finished 2-for-3 with an RBI, Kaeli McAnally (Islip) was 2-for-4 and Barry went 1-for-3 with a walk and RBI for the Red Dragons.
 
Halle Wright (Ballston Spa) doubled and eventually scored on a Barry RBI single in the first. Hurley's RBI single tied the game in the bottom of the inning. Cortland went up 2-1 in the third on a Cummings RBI single. The Bengals' four-run fourth included a Pezdek RBI double, a Quagliana RBI single and a Stewart two-run single.
 
Pezdek added an RBI single in the fifth to make it 6-2. Scotto doubled in a run in the top of the sixth, but the Bengals took advantage of an error that allowed two runs to score, followed by RBI singles from Cam O'Hara and Quagliana. Lainie Ornstein (Yorktown Heights/Yorktown) finished the scoring for Cortland with an RBI groundout in the seventh.
 
Cortland 3, Buffalo State 2 (9 inn.)
 
Cortland fell behind 2-0 in the second on a Pezdek solo homer and an error that allowed a run to score. The Red Dragons tied the game in the top of the fifth. McAnally singled and went to third on a Kayla Pendergast (West Hempstead) single. Pendergast stole second, and during the next at-bat a wild pitch allowed McAnally to score. On that play, the throw from the catcher to home plate was wild and Pendergast came around to score the tying run.
 
With the game still tied after seven innings, the teams began extra innings with no runner placed on second as the SUNYAC doesn't begin using the tiebreaker rule in regular-season league games until the 10th inning. Cortland loaded the bases in the eighth but couldn't score, while Buffalo State was retired in order. In the ninth, Wright singled with one out and Laila Smith (Guilderland) walked. Scotto followed with a single through the left side to score Wright with the go-ahead run. The Bengals were retired in order again in the bottom of the ninth.
 
Gianna Endieveri (Glens Falls) started and went all nine innings for Cortland to improve to 7-4. She gave up seven hits and two runs, one earned, with two walks and 11 strikeouts. Endieveri allowed four hits through the first two innings and one each in the third and fourth, but only one baserunner reached over the final five innings on a Stewart one-out infield single in the seventh.
 
Pendergast went 2-for-3 and Wright and McAnally each finished 2-for-5 for the Red Dragons, who finished with 10 hits. For Buffalo State, Stewart was 2-for-3 and Quagliana went 2-for-4. Pezdek, in addition to homering, tossed all nine innings and gave up three runs, one earned, on 10 hits with seven strikeouts and two walks.
 
Ornstein stole second base in the fifth inning for her 50th career steal over four seasons. She is just the third player in program history to reach the career 50-steal mark. She entered the game tied for third with Jamie Neuner, who stole 49 bases from 2005-07. Donnalyn Cross is Cortland's career leader with 70 steals from 2008-11, followed by Jamie Bucci with 59 thefts from 2013-16.