Plattsburgh State baseball suffered three straight losses against SUNY Cortland this past weekend, bringing their SUNYAC record to 1-5 and their overall record to 6-8.
The Cardinals played a doubleheader Sunday after games originally scheduled for Friday and Saturday were rained out. PSUC dropped the first game 1-8, with junior Matt Fox starting at pitcher and allowing eight hits, four runs and two walks, while also striking out two batters.
The Cards lost the second game of the doubleheader 0-11, where junior outfielder Rocco Cipriano and sophomore shortstop Stephen Bryant recorded all three of PSUC’s hits.
Monday’s game was more of the same with the Cards being defeated 0-13, where PSUC recorded four hits and sunk deeper into a hole after allowing five runs in the sixth inning.
Although The Cards’ offense was miniscule this past weekend against Cortland, the Red Dragons are ranked No. 14 in the nation and PSUC has been swept by Cortland the past three seasons.
Head coach Kris Doorey elaborated on what went wrong for the Cards against Cortland.
“Cortland’s very talented, and we’re still extremely young, so we’re still in that rebuilding process,” Doorey said. “We hit the ball pretty good early in the first game, and then we kind of struggled after that. We got to get better starting pitching, and we definitely have to get better relief pitching.”
Stephen Bryant, a sophomore shortstop, believes that there’s some positivity that can be taken from the Cortland losses.
“A positive I can see out of losing to Cortland all three games is that it exposes you, so you can see what your mistakes were on the field, and, when you get back to practice, you get to try and work on those things,” Bryant said.
John Craft, a junior third baseman, shared little things that can be improved before their next game.
“A lot has to do with situational hitting and also just being more consistent on the basepaths and not making mistakes because that really puts us behind,” Craft said. “That’s how we end up losing games that we could win.”
Doorey said that he wasn’t too worried about losing three games to Cortland this past weekend because it’s still early in the season. PSUC will be hosting The College at Brockport this upcoming weekend for their home opener on March 30 and 31.
“Our overall record is 6-9, but five of those nine losses have been to teams that are in the National Poll, so we know we’re not one of the top 40 teams in the country, but we’re in that next mix of teams,” Doorey said. “They want to play Cortland again in the SUNYAC playoffs.”
Other than playing against Cortland and in Florida over spring break, the Cards haven’t had much time to practice this season. The team was removing snow from Chip Cummings Field on Tuesday to practice and prepare for their home outing against Brockport this weekend.
One attribute that Doorey believes PSUC has is team chemistry and that he envisions it helping them achieve success the rest of this season.
“This is probably the best group of guys we’ve had in four or five years as far as team chemistry goes,” Doorey said. “They kept battling and battling against Cortland, even though the games were one-sided, but they kept fighting and supporting each other, so team chemistry is perfect right now.”
Email Nate Mundt at sports@cardinalpointsonline.com
