By ABIGAIL SCHMIDT
HOUGHTON, NY–The Genesee Rapids found a way to win Wednesday night with a 4-2 victory over the Olean Oilers at the Kerr-Pegula Athletic Complex in New York Collegiate Baseball League action.
John Kopicky (Ohio Northern) got the win for the Rapids. He allowed two runs on six hits with one strikeout in six innings.
“John threw really well on the mound,” said Rapids manager Tyler Rost. “He threw strikes all night and he was able to get guys out.”
“Pitching to contact worked for me tonight,” said the Ohio native. “I only had one strikeout and fell behind batters a few times, but letting them hit it seemed to work well.”
Jason Collingwood (Greenville) and Breton LaRose (Sacred Heart) came out of the bullpen. LaRose was credited with the save.
The Genesee offense struck first in the second when Austin Hauck (Sienna Heights) scored off a Tyler Minogue (Bellarmine) RBI double.
Minogue tallied two doubles and an RBI on the evening.
Olean scored one in the top of the fifth, but the Rapids answered right back with three runs in the bottom of the inning.
Nick Ippolito (California St. Stanislaus) had an RBI single to bring Jake Shelby (Hesston) home, then Dan Crozier (Cazenovia) smacked a two-run RBI single to bring Ippolito and Karlis Graubics (Marymount) across the plate.
Crozier leads the NYCBL in RBI on the season with 25, while Ippolito continued his hitting streak to 28 straight games.
“The fifth inning was big for us,” said Rost. “We were able to get the leadoff guy on base and then Dan had the huge hit that really opened things up. Getting guys on base early was key.”
“That big inning from our offense really helped me,” said Kopicky. “I was falling behind a lot of batters, but having that 4-1 lead relaxed me a little and I wasn’t so tense.”
Olean scored one more in the sixth to cut the Genesee lead to two, but it would stay there for the remainder of the game.
“It seems consistent that one bad inning kills us,” said Olean manager Bobby Bell. “Obviously we would like to score more runs, but one inning got us tonight. If we can minimize those innings to keep us in the game I think it’ll put us in a better situation.
“[Genesee] is a good team, they hit the ball. They put a few hits together in one inning, which I wish we would do, and that was the difference in tonight’s game.”
Ryan Pordes (El Camino) received the loss for Olean. He allowed four runs on seven hits with four strikeouts in 5.1 innings. Joe Nicolace (Nichols) and Ben Wilford also threw for the Oilers.
“A positive tonight for us was Ben,” said Bell. “He’s new to the team and it was his first time pitching all year. It was nice to see him come out and really shove. Hopefully he’ll help us out and win a few games down the road. Our pitching tonight wasn’t bad, it’s always pretty good.”
Olean’s Jonathan Lapolla (Suffolk) and Kaden Darrow (Marymount) each tallied an RBI and a double on the night. Darrow was 3-for-3 at the plate.
The Oilers fall to 13-15 with the loss and Genesee improves to 16-15.
The two teams face off again Thursday in Olean for the third of the four-game set.
“We need to not let up,” said Rost. “There’s an opportunity tomorrow to either split the series or win the series so we need to come out ready to go.”
Written by Abby Schmidt, junior year communications and business major at Houghton College
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