Baseball | 5/21/2022 7:16:00 PM
CORTLAND, NY – The St. John Fisher College baseball team had its season ended in the NCAA Regional on Saturday as the Cardinals fell to nationally-ranked Endicott College, 18-8, in an elimination bout at Cortland's Wallace Field. With the loss, Fisher concluded the season at 31-16 while the Gulls, who are ranked 19th in the latest D3baseball.com poll, improved to 38-7 and will meet No. 12 Cortland in the regional finale on Sunday morning.
After falling behind 4-1 through the top of the fourth, Fisher's bats came to life as the Cardinals scored six runs on seven hits to forge ahead, 7-4. Brian Norsen led off with a single down the right field line and moved into scoring position when Luke Duffy singled through the right side. With two on and no outs, James Murphy stepped in and crushed a three-run home run to left to even the game at four runs aside. With three already in, Ethan Perry kept the inning going with a single before Noah Campanelli ripped one through the right side. With one away and two runners aboard, Ben Lavery connected with a hard-hit single that loaded the bases for Michael Beimel who drove in a run with a groundout. With two down, Endicott was poised to escape the jam, but Nick Lemire jumped on a pitch and plated a pair with a double to right before the Gulls could retire the side.
Leading by three, Fisher gave two runs back in the top of the fifth before a leadoff home run by Duffy made it 8-6 in Fisher's favor heading to the top of the sixth.
Facing a two-run gap in the seventh, Endicott took advantage of a pitching change and scored seven runs on six hits including a grand slam to pull ahead, 13-8.
From there, the Gulls scored four more runs in the top of the eighth and held Fisher at bay over the final two innings to earn their spot in Sunday's regional finale.
In total, Fisher came up with 13 hits led by Duffy who fell a triple shy of the cycle after going 3-for-5 with a home run, a double, an RBI and two runs scored. Norsen had two hits in five at-bats and scored a run while Lavery was 2-for-5 with a homer and a pair of runs scored. Murphy finished the day with a three-run home run and Lemire had one hit in the loss and drove in two runs.
Michael Poirier opened for Fisher and let in three runs on one hit over an inning before being relieved by Russell Dunlap who threw four frames and yielded three runs on six hits to go along with two strikeouts. Logan Persse (3-3) was saddled with the loss after giving up three runs (one earned) in an inning while Ryan O'Mara was tagged for four runs and recorded two outs. Jason Wall surrendered three runs in a third of an inning before Christian O'Brien and Christian Maloney combined for two runs on three hits over the final two frames.
Earlier in the day,
Alec Teska pitched seven strong innings and
Ryan O'Mara earned his first save of season as the Cardinals eliminated Bridgewater State, 5-4. Yesterday, Endicott knocked off the Cardinals, 10-1 to open play at the Cortland regional.
The Cardinals put together another successful campaign in 2022 having claimed their second straight Empire 8 Championship as the team boasted the conference's Player and Pitcher of the Year while head coach
Brandon Potter, alongside assistant coaches
Evan Ryan,
Matt Toohey,
Dave Roth and
Mike Cerame, were named the Empire 8 Coaching Staff of the Year. In all, eight players were named All-Conference by the Empire 8 as Fisher surpassed the 30-win plateau for the fourth time since 2016.