By Mikai Bruce
The SUNY Plattsburgh Cardinals’ losing streak has continued after a three-game series against SUNY Brockport. Its losing streak has extended to seven games and there’s a need to get out of this funk before it is too late. The team currently stands at 5-13 and is 0-6 in SUNYAC play.
“We had them in two games, it’s just, unfortunately, when the time mattered most, we weren’t able to close it out,” pitcher Sean Malamud said.
The team is not making excuses for themselves and neither is the coach.
“Couldn’t hold the lead in game one in extras. Did not hit well in games two and three,” Head Coach Sam Quinn-Loeb said.
The Cardinals played a double header this past Friday, March 31, where the first game was a 5-6 loss in an extra two innings for a total of 11 innings. Nick Cergol brought in two runs in this game and was the leading scorer for the Cardinals in a dramatic game.
Adam Wein, Christian Ott and Kyle Cremin chipped in with one run each, but even with all this scoring the Cardinals still couldn’t pull out the victory. After scoring two runs each in the 10th inning, Brockport squeezed past Plattsburgh with a single run in the 11th inning to win the game in what was another heartbreaking loss.
The second game in the double header ended in a similar manner to the first game. The pitching staff held a team to no runs scored for most of the game and the batters could not take advantage of the opportunity. Chris Santic was the pitcher in charge of the game and he gave up only two runs, which both came in the ninth inning, after a home run by Brockport.
Cremin scored the only run of the game for the Cardinals after a single by Connor Gonzalski in the ninth inning, but Plattsburgh never got to fight back in the game beyond that.
The third game against Brockport was played April 1 and was the worst loss of the series. The Cardinals lost 0-5 en route to their seventh straight loss, a morale crusher after so many hardfought games against this team. Plattsburgh could not get anything going when it pertained to batting, fitting the overall theme of their season so far. Andrew Veit was the main pitcher in this game. Ryan Nista and Justin Osborn also pitched.
Although this series ended in disappointment for the Cardinals, there are still some positives that can be drawn from it. The first of the three games saw one of the better batting performances from the team during this slump and it showcased the hitting talent that this team has.
“I think we fought hard in all of the games but we didn’t have enough competitive at bats and didn’t put enough pressure on Brockport to make plays,” Veit said.
“Credit to them for digging deep in those games, but hopefully we can dig deep in our upcoming conference and finally be on the other end of the one-run games we’ve had if need be. I have all the confidence in the world with this team. I know we can get it done.”
Two out of three games were decided by one run, showing that this team can put itself in position to win games. If just a couple things go their way, the outcome would be much different. The pitching staff has continued to shut out teams for long stretches of time and that bodes well for the rest of the season.
The Cardinals play its home opener today, April 7. It will be taking on the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Engineers in a non-conference matchup. Plattsburgh will have the weekend off before hosting the Clarkson Golden Knights Tuesday, April 11. Non-conference home games will be an opportunity for the Cards to gain some momentum before continuing its conference season.
