Kash’s blast Crushes Wellsville

By Cameron Boon

CORTLAND, N.Y. — With two outs in the bottom of the ninth and two strikes on the batter, Wellsville closer Avery Ford (Fulton-Montgomery CC) and the Nitros were ready for extra innings. The Cortland batter, Zephan Kash (Mansfield), however, was not, as he launched his second solo shot in as many nights, giving the Crush a 9-8 walkoff win against the Nitros in a New York Collegiate Baseball League interdivision game on Sunday evening.

In a game that featured four lead changes and a pair of ties, it was the Crush bats that had the final laugh, winning their second in a row.

Kash finished with a 2-for-4 day while scoring three runs, including the game-winner.

Zachary Lander (SUNY Brockport) gets credit for the win, as he shut out the Nitros in the top of the ninth.

Wellsville drew first blood in the second, putting up a pair. Christopher Kemp (Pittsburgh-Bradford) scored Gerard DeFilippo (Felician) with an RBI single to put the Nitros on the board. Kemp then scored when Alec Bahnick’s (Webster) batted ball was booted by third baseman Christopher Kwitzer (Buffalo).

The Rochester, NY native Kemp finished 2-for-5 on the day, bringing his batting average back above the .200 at .222.

Cortland rallied with three in the bottom half. Kash scored on a Kwitzer double, and that cut the lead in half to 2-1. Kwitzer and Anthony Santoro (Canisius) then gave the Crush the lead at 3-2 on Geoffrey Soto’s (Niagara) single to right.

Christ Conley (Canisius) tied the game in the top of the fourth with an RBI single that scored Kemp. The Nitros then snagged the lead back with Josh Beams’ RBI groundout to short that scored Jordyn Confer (Alfred State). Conley then scored to give Wellsville a two run lead when Haefner laced a RBI single.

Cortland answered right back with three of their own in the bottom half of the fourth. Kwitzer cut the lead to one with a sacrifice fly to right field, scoring Kash. Connor Dwyer (Saginaw Valley State) and Sean McCoy (Pomona-Pitzer) then scored to give the Crush the lead back again at 6-5.

Wesley Burghardt (SUNY Brockport) made it 7-5 in the bottom of the fifth when he touched home on a Dwyer single.

Josh Beams (Indiana U Southeast) drove in Bahnick with an RBI single to center to cut the lead in half to one. The game would then be tied again when Beams was plated by Haefner’s sacrifice fly to center.

This back-and-forth affair was far from over, though, as Greg Jasek (Clarkson) brought home Santoro with an RBI single to give the Crush the lead back again in the bottom of the sixth.

Cortland called again, Wellsville answered again in the top of the seventh as Bahnick drove in Jordan Wheaton (Alfred State) with an RBI single to tie the game at eight.

After a scoreless eighth, Lander pitched a scoreless ninth to put the Crush in position to win the game. Ford was able to retire the first to Cortland batters and put Kash into an 0-2 hole. After wasting a pitch, Kash clocked the delivery over the wall at Beaudry park to give the Crush their second win in as many days.

 

 

The final two batters of the Nitros order, Conley and Bahnick, were responsible for five of the nine team hits, and drove in half of the team’s runs combined.

The Crush (10-12) are now two games off the pace in an Eastern Division where four teams sit in a virtual tie.

The Nitros have now lost four in a row as they stay 12.5 GB of the Hornell Dodgers in the Western Division after their loss to the Rochester Ridgemen that night. Wellsville is now 5-17.