By ABIGAIL SCHMIDT
HOUGHTON, NY—The Genesee Rapids swept a three game series with the Wellsville Nitros with a 5-4 win Thursday afternoon in New York Collegiate Baseball League action at the Kerr-Pegula Athletic Complex.
Nick Watkins (Defiance) earned the win for the Rapids. He went six innings, allowed only three runs on six hits and struck out three Nitros.
“Nick threw well on the mound today,” stated Rapids manager Tyler Rost. “He battled for us, kept us in it, and that’s what we need our pitchers to do.”
“My changeup was working for me today,” said the Ohio native. “I had trouble locating my curveball all day, but I thought my changeup looked good and I was spotting my fastball really well.”
The Rapids faced a 2-1 deficit after the fifth, but answered back in the sixth inning and gained their first lead of the game. Tommy Haas (Arkansas-Pine Bluff), William Lucas (Akron) and Bailey Smith (Howard Payne) crossed home plate to give the Rapids a 4-3 lead, all with two outs against them.
Karlis Graubics (Marymount), Nick Ippolito (California State Stanislaus) and Ryan Dickt (Virginia-Wise) tallied one RBI each in the inning.
“We were able to get guys on and move them over,” Rapids manager Tyler Rost said. “We just got some big hits in big situations. Two out hitting was big again today.”
Corey Andrade (Anna Maria) had two doubles on the afternoon, while Joey Chapman (Cedarville), Ippolito and Graubics tallied three, two and two RBI respectively.
“We didn’t have any home runs, there weren’t many extra base hits today, but guys battled at the plate and we were able to hit balls hard. We had a lot of singles here and there, we just took balls the other way pretty well today,” commented Rost.
Watkins also praised his offense. “It’s always good when you get your offense behind you. The guys put some good swings together and it gave me confidence all the way.”
A highlight for the Nitros offense came in the eighth inning, when Donny Killian (Buffalo) hit a solo home run to bring them within one run after the Rapids scored one in the seventh.
“We gave up three runs in the sixth inning, we take that inning away and it’s a completely different ball game,” said Nitros manager Jake Bannerman. “It’s just about limited damage when teams score runs. We’ve been giving up multiple runs in innings instead of just one, and that’s killed us the last couple games.”
“On a positive note,” Bannerman assessed, “we were definitely swinging the bats a lot better. We’re getting hits it’s just those timely hits that we’re missing. We want to turn those one run innings into two or three runs.”
The Rapids mound saw a total of three pitchers, with Edward Monthie (Houghton) coming in as Watkins’ relief in the seventh innings, while Breton LaRose (Sacred Heart) was credited with the save.
Caleb Bennett (Pitt-Bradford) started for the Nitros and received the loss. He gave up four runs on nine hits with no strikeouts in five innings. Christopher Welch (Mississippi) came in at the bottom of the fifth for the last two outs of the inning, and Harry Montero Jr. (Bloomfield) finished the last two innings.
The Nitros fall to 3-7 with the loss, and will take on the Niagara Power, the top team in the West, Friday at 7 pm in Niagara.
The Rapids improve to 7-3 on the season, ranked second in the Western Division. They battle the Geneva Twins on Friday at the Kerr-Pegula Athletic Complex. Rost simply wants to see “more of the same” from his team.
Written by Abigail Schmidt, junior year business and communications major at Houghton College
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