By CAMERON BOON
WEBSTER, N.Y. — Colin Winn (Santa Ana) arrived to the Rochester Ridgemen a week late. He was not late to the hit parade Monday night.
Winn plated four runs and finished a home run shy of the cycle in Rochester’s 8-5 victory over the Wellsville Nitros in New York Collegiate Baseball League action at Basket Road Field.
“Colin’s a ballplayer,” Ridgemen head coach Joe Shallenberger said. “You could tell when he showed up to the field.”
Cole Metcalfe (Bellarmine) also had himself a day, driving in a pair of runs in a 3-for-5 effort.
“Colin and Cole are swinging the bats really good right now and to have those two back-to-back and swinging good bats is really good for our team,” Shallenberger said.
Rochester improved to 3-1 against the Nitros on the season, with a perfect 3-0 effort against Wellsville at the comfortable confines of Basket Road Field.
The Ridgemen also put together their best offensive production night of the season, putting up eight runs on 10 hits, both season highs.
“We could feel it when we walked in,” Metcalfe said about the atmosphere at what turned out to be a warm night in Rochester. “When we walked onto the field, it was like we expected to win. Not that we were going to do our best to win or try to win.”
That mantra carried over into the first inning, as the Ridgemen got on the board early with a long single by Metcalfe that went to the left field fence. With the bases loaded, everybody was forced to tag up, allowing only Winn to score on the play and make it 1-0 Rochester.
“In BP I’ve been following my front foot a lot, so it’s a lot about trying to stay back and be soft on the front foot,” the Bellarmine attendee said.
Rochester then plated a trio of runs in the second, two of which came courtesy of Winn. He hit a soft liner into left-center and had a double on his mind the entire way, hustling into second base while two runners scored.
Then who better than Metcalfe to drive in Winn for the second straight inning and make it 4-0 Rochester, giving Zack Leonard (Lancaster Bible) all of the space he would need to work for the win.
Leonard threw 5.1 innings, allowing three runs on six hits while striking out five batters.
The Nitros used a sacrifice fly to cut the lead to 4-1, but the Ridgemen answered in the bottom of the fifth with a four-spot that put the game out of reach for Wellsville.
Who else would start it other than Metcalfe, who laced a triple into left field to start the inning.
He scored on a single by Devan O’Bryan (St. Louis CC Meramec).
Winn, now the everyday right fielder for the Ridgemen after arriving late due to school, put his stamp on the inning with a triple of his own, scoring Drew Farmer (Western Michigan) and Aaron Vallance (Wayland Baptist) to make it 8-1 Rochester.
“We just kept putting pressure on the defense,” Winn said.
Farmer and Vallance both scored their second runs of the game on the plays.
“We’ve just hit them right at people and tonight it was in gaps and over there heads so that was nice to see,” Shallenberger said.
This bomb to left-center put him a home run away from the cycle, but he did not get a chance to try for the homer. He was intentionally walked in his final plate appearance of the night.
“I think I had brought it up to somebody. I wasn’t going to look for it I was just going to stick to my approach,” Winn said.
Wellsville answered with a four-spot in the sixth inning, highlighted by a bases-clearing, three-run triple by Bruce Strickland (Felician), that cut the lead to 8-5.
Luke Brown (Rollins) came on for the three-inning save, allowing only two hits.
The Ridgemen are off tomorrow before hosting the Geneva Twins on Wednesday night at Basket Road Field at 7:00 p.m.
Wellsville will play their 12th game in 11 days Tuesday when they host the Genesee Rapids at 11:00 a.m.
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