CCC Baseball Team Rally for Split with Cougars

Cayuga Community College Baseball rallied from an early deficit to salvage a split with Genesee Community College at Falcon Park on Wednesday.

After dropping the season opener 11-0 to the Cougars, the Spartans scored the final nine runs of the nightcap to earn a 9-2 win. The doubleheader makes Cayuga 1-1 in Mid-State Athletic Conference competition.

Cayuga Coach John Rizzo praised his team for responding in the second game following the difficult opener against a good team.

“We like to schedule tough teams early in the season to challenge our team. Genesee went to the regional championship last year and is a team we’ve seen in the playoffs. We were outplayed in the first game, but we learned a lot about our team’s mental toughness,” said Rizzo. “We regrouped, adjusted our approach at the plate and played our brand of baseball in the second game.”

Genesee took control of the opener with three runs in the first inning, then added seven more in the fifth. The Spartans put a runner in scoring position in the second but were unable to score. Mike DeRosa, Isaac Allison and Luca D’Emilio had hits for the Spartans, and Andrew Seward threw four innings in relief.

In the second game, Genesee scored twice in the first but Allison, in his first collegiate start, and relief pitcher Dylan Gordon held them scoreless the rest of the way.

Cayuga got on the board in the second inning, with D’Emilio’s double scoring Jeremy Recio, before breaking the game open in the third. Recio doubled home a run in the third to tie the game, then D’Emilio delivered the go-ahead single later that inning. Cayuga tallied three more runs that inning to build a 6-2 lead, then scored three more runs in the sixth.

Allison scattered six hits over five innings for the win, with Gordon retiring all six batters he faced in relief. Recio finished the second game with three hits, two doubles, two runs and two RBI, and D’Emilio had a double, run scored and two RBI. Kevin Dolan scored twice, and Jacob Laird, Owen Browne and Jakson Ross had RBIs.

The Spartans are on the road this weekend for two doubleheaders in Maryland. They play CCBC-Essex on Saturday, March 8, and CCBC-Catonsville on Sunday. Both doubleheaders start at noon.