By PAUL GOTHAM
GENEVA, N.Y. — It was going to take more than a rain shower to slow Shae Edmonds (Howard Payne) on Thursday night.
The Cortland starter picked up his first win of the season, and the Crush cruised to a 7-1 victory over the Geneva Red Wings in New York Collegiate Baseball League action at McDonough Park.
Edmonds allowed one run on two hits over six innings as Cortland improved to 10-10 and sit two games behind first-place Geneva in the NYCBL’s Eastern Division.
“Usually, I run into some problems,” Edmonds said. “It didn’t seem to happen today.”
The right-hander struck out six and walked none in his longest outing of the season.
“I loved his pace, his command, his enthusiasm,” Cortland manager Bill McConnell said. “He works hard out there. He did everything in a very good fashion tonight. Very good pitching performance.”
Edmonds allowed just one baserunner through the first five and a third and retired 11 straight from the second to the sixth inning.
“He keeps that energy within himself,” McConnell added. “He doesn’t play too high or too low, emotionally.”
His lone hiccup came with one out in the sixth when Jackson Rhodes (Birmingham Southern Coll) drilled a 2-1 pitch over the fence in right field.
“He made only one or two mistakes and one of them went out of the ball park,” Geneva’s manager Ryan Kassab said. “He really didn’t give us a lot of mistakes to capitalize on even if we had done it. He pitched a good game. Hats off to him.”
Edmonds outlasted a 40-minute rain delay and walked back to the mound like nothing out of the ordinary occurred. He needed just seven pitches to retire the side in the fifth.
“To be honest, I was just sitting in the dugout trying to stay warm,” Edmonds said of how he spent the time waiting for the shower to pass. “I put a jacket on. It got a little chilly when the sun started to go down. I just tried to stay warm and I came out here and threw a couple pitches.”
“The rain did not affect him,” Kassab stated. “He definitely locked in from the get go. We knew what he was going to do. He was pitching us away. He has a slider and change up nice and low.
“We tried to slow down the pace of the game a little bit. He was working very quickly.”
Cortland pulled away with a four-run fourth. Leading 2-0, Wesley Burghardt (SUNY Brockport) started the stanza with a single. It was the first of five hits in an inning when the Crush sent eight to the plate.
“As a leadoff guy, you’re just trying to get on base,” Burghardt said. “I got a pitch I could do something with and just drove it up the middle. Didn’t try to do too much.”
Luke Gilbert (SUNY Brockport) followed with a single to left field. Sean Getman (SUNY Onenonta) moved the runners with a ground ball to the right side of the infield. Two outs later, Alex Loberger (Northland) delivered with a single through the left side of the infield on a one-ball, two-strike pitch. Julian Gallup (Niagara U) reached on a bunt single, and Grant Hoover (Shippensburg) capped the frame with a two-run double to left center.
The outburst was a welcomed change for McConnell whose team managed just five hits in a 9-4 loss to Oneonta the previous night – Cortland’s second setback in a row.
“It’s always nice particularly after last night. We didn’t string ‘em together at Oneonta, and we started stringing them together here. It builds confidence. We got a four-game series with Geneva, so hopefully the confidence just keeps growing.”
A trio of relievers tossed a shutout inning each. Ryan Smith (Hudson Valley CC) retired all three batters he faced in the seventh. Matt Yonta (Union) worked the eighth, and Joe Jones (Maryville) came on for the ninth.
“Our bullpen has really put it together well,” McConnell said.
Seven different Cortland players collected two hits each including Hoover who drove in a game-high three runs.
Gallup and Loberger both scored twice.
Rhodes had two hits in three trips to the plate for Geneva.
The loss was the second straight for Geneva (11-7).
“You can’t be too high; you can’t be too low,” Kassab said. “You got to be yourself out there. We got beat…They played better, and that’s something you can live with in this game. It’s something I can sleep, and we can regroup for tomorrow and still come out and take the next three since we’re throwing our one, two and three at them and win the series.”
The same two teams meet in Cortland on Friday for a doubleheader. First pitch of game one is scheduled for 3 p.m. Two games separate the top five teams in the NYCBL’s Eastern Division.
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