By ABIGAIL SCHMIDT
HOUGHTON, N.Y. — The Geneva Twins’ offense went off Sunday afternoon in a 9-3 win over the Genesee Rapids in New York Collegiate Baseball League action at the Kerr-Pegula Athletic Complex.
A solo home run from JT Pittman (Le Moyne) in the first inning gave the Twins an early lead and the momentum right away.
“When we hit that home run in the first inning I think the guys got a little bit of a spark,” said Twins’ manager Andy Weeks.
Geneva went on to score three runs in the second, one in the third and four in the seventh.
“We came out early and started swinging the bat,” continued Weeks. “That really helped. We had good plate approaches all day long.”
Jeremy Tejada (So. New Hampshire) collected three RBI on the day, including a two-run RBI triple in the seventh that brought Andy LaLonde (So. New Hampshire) and Luke Waldek (Minnesota St Community & Tech) home.
Pittman tallied two RBI and Marty Napleton (St. Josephs) hit a triple, while Connor Simonetti (Kent St) and Lalonde each recorded a double.
Mitchell Powers (Southern New Hampshire) earned the win on the mound for the Twins. He allowed one run on only two hits with three strikeouts in seven innings.
“He’s been doing this all year long,” commented Weeks. “Today I thought he was really good. He was living low and didn’t miss with a lot of balls up and was able to get his off-speed working. He was great for us.”
“I just kept the ball low,” said the Indiana native. “That was working really well for me. But having the offense get going early was huge for me. It gave me a lot of confidence and let me know that the team had my back. It let me relax and throw strikes.”
The Twins’ mound also saw Quinn Dipasquale (Stevens Tech) for the last two innings.
Genesee scored one run in the first to tie the score going into the second, but couldn’t get much else going until they scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth.
“We didn’t do much right today,” said Rapids manager Tyler Rost. “Offensively and defensively we made mistakes and they took advantage of them.”
Ned Monthie (Houghton) took the loss. He allowed seven runs (four earned) on seven hits with two strikeouts in 6.1 innings.
Nick Ippolito (Cal St Stanislaus) got the Rapids on the board in the first off a RBI from Dan Crozier (Cazenovia). Genesee struck again to try to cut into the Twins’ lead in the ninth. Tommy Haas (Arkansas of Pinebluff) and Jake Shelby (Hesston) came in off a Will Lucas (Akron) two-run RBI single.
The Genesee mound also saw Jason Collingwood (Greenville), Bailey Smith (Howard Payne) and Shelby.
Ippolito extended his hitting streak to a league-high since 2011, 26 games.
The Twins improve to 15-13 on the season with the win, and will face the Wellsville Nitros Monday.
Nate Roethel (St. John Fisher), Napleton and Simonetti recorded one RBI each.
“We’ve been hitting well lately,” said Weeks. “I would like to see us continue to put up runs and getting guys in scoring position. If we start doing that I think we’ll be a really good team.”
The Rapids fall below .500 on the season, with a record of 14-15. They take on the Olean Oilers Monday at the Kerr-Pegula Athletic Complex at 7 p.m.
“There’s some big games coming up for us,” said Rost. “This next stretch will probably be the difference of whether we make playoffs or not so everyone has to be locked in and ready to go.”
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