By PAUL GOTHAM
GENEVA, N.Y. — Saturday night’s New York Collegiate Baseball League match-up at McDonough Park proved itself worthy of the pre-game billing as a pitcher’s duel.
In the end, a smattering of cheap hits proved the difference.
Mitchell Powers (So. New Hampshire) improved to 6-1 on the season, and the Geneva Twins edged closer to first with a 5-1 victory over the Western-Division leading Hornell Dodgers.
Powers allowed one run on seven hits over eight innings. The right-hander gained a slight bit of revenge for an earlier outing as he struck out six and walked one. The Twins ace needed just 26 pitches to get through the first three innings.
“They were attacking me early, so that’s when I started to switch up things,” Powers said. “In the beginning of the games it was just fastballs. Mixing it up a little bit.”
Other than a one-out solo shot off the bat of Steven Goldstein (Kansas) in the fifth, Powers matched Hornell’s Troy Montemayor (Baylor) pitch for pitch. Goldstein, with his third home run of the season, represented the only Dodger to reach base from the end of the second to the beginning of the sixth with Powers retiring eight straight at one point and 10 of 11.
“You change up things toward the middle of the game and figure out what they’re doing,” Powers explained. “It ended up working out.”
The Portland, Maine native worked out of a pair of late-inning jams to preserve the lead.
Thad Johnson (St. Bonaventure) led the seventh with a single to center. Trevor Thompson (Ithaca) worked a base on balls. Powers ended the threat setting down the next three in order with a pair of routine fly balls and a ground ball to end the inning.
Max McDougald (Wofford) led the eighth with a double to right center. One out later, Kellen Brown (St. Petersburg College) singled through the right side. Powers stranded the runners with a punch out and pop up.
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“Few sticky situations,” Powers said of his last two innings. “Honestly, that’s what I love most about pitching. The adrenaline rush was crazy. Did what I had to do. Had to calm down. Had to relax myself and throw strikes. I have a great defense behind me, and I know they’re going to make plays. I had to do my part and throw strikes.”
“He’s the kind of pitcher that he goes out there if he does get in trouble, he actually gets tougher,” Geneva manager Andy Weeks said. “He doesn’t back off. He gets his nose into it a little bit more. I love watching that.”
Geneva’s offense added three insurance run in the home half of the inning.
Andy Lalonde (So. New Hampshire) reached on an error. Luke Waldek (Minn. St. Comm. & Tech. Coll) put runners on the corners with a check swing single to third base side of the mound. Kenny Reckart (Wooster) plated a run with a seeing-eye single through the right side of the infield. Joshua Handzik (St. Joseph’s College) walked, and Taylor Vile (Castleton St.) brought home two with a bloop single to right that Johnson dove and nearly caught.
“We got a few swinging bunts, couple things here and there. He started getting a little frustrated,” Weeks said of Montemayor. “He started leaving a couple balls up. We started putting wood on them.”
The loss was the first of the season for the San Antonio, Texas native. Montemayor is 5-1 on the season. Geneva’s four earned runs and 13 hits mark the most the right-hander has surrendered in his eight starts this season.
“That’s how he’s been,” Hornell manager Tom Kenney said. “He battled his tail off.”
“Kid still threw pretty well,” Weeks noted. “You had two guys just threw in the all-star game two days ago, and they did not disappoint today. It was a great game.”
A close play at the plate led to Geneva’s first run of the night.
Trailing 1-0 in the sixth, Marty Napleton (St. Joseph’s College) went to right field for a one-out single. Lalonde drilled a double down the left field line.
“He throws a lot of strikes, so I was up there trying to put a good swing on a ball,” Lalonde said. “I just barreled it. When you put the ball in play, good things happen usually.”
Napleton rounded third on the play and headed for home. The relay throw from Hornell shortstop Jacob Bass (Newberry Coll) appeared to beat the runner for what would have been the second out of the inning, but Napleton was ruled safe on the play.
Waldek and Reckart followed with back-to-back tappers in front of the plate to load the bases before Handzik brought home the eventual game-winner with single back up the middle.
“He’d been throwing a lot of breaking balls when he was ahead in the count, so I was sitting, looking for something off-speed,” Handzik explained. “He’d gotten me out on a change up earlier in the game, so I figured he was going to come off speed with me.”
Handzik, who came into the game with four hits in his previous 32 at bats gave the Twins a lead they never surrendered with his seventh RBI of the season.
“I was right on his fastball, but I didn’t think that would be his out pitch,” Handzik added. “I was lucky just to stay through something, get it through the middle. I’ve been having a little bit of tough luck this season. I was trying to use the big part of the field.”
For Hornell it was a case of what could have been as the loss snapped a seven-game Dodgers winning streak.
“That call just changed momentum,” Kenney said. “It makes a difference. It makes him face two or three hitters who get a hit.
“You got overcome those things, and we didn’t. Hard to win with one run. We’ve won a bunch in a row. Time to get going again tomorrow.”
Geneva could have added another run, but Goldstein fired a strike from center field to nail Waldek at the plate.
Kyle Monk (Emory) worked a scoreless ninth for his league-leading 12th save of the year. The right-hander struck out two.
Geneva (24-16) cut Hornell’s (27-11) lead in the west to four games.
Powers surrendered four runs on nine hits in a 6-0 loss to Hornell earlier in the season.
“There’s a certain number we got to get to get where we want to be,” Kenney said. “You got to go after another piece of that number tomorrow.”
Geneva will play on an odd, to say the least, triple-header on Sunday. The Twins first will complete a suspended game with Wellsville before playing a nine-inning affair with the Nitros. Geneva will then pack up the bus and head to Maple City Park for a 7 p.m. rematch with Hornell.
Hornell fell to 2-5 in games played on Saturday this year.
Geneva played five double headers in eight days in late June.
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