By ABBY SCHMIDT
HOUGHTON, N.Y.—The Genesee Rapids’ playoff chances are slim, but there is still hope after they came away with a 5-1 victory over the Rochester Ridgemen Tuesday night at the Kerr-Pegula Athletic Complex in New York Collegiate Baseball League action.
After six scoreless innings, Rochester struck in the sixth with a run from Ryan O’Hearn (Hillsdale) off a Genesee error. The lead didn’t hold for long as the Rapids offense found some much needed life in the eighth inning and scored five runs; three more than they had in their previous 22 innings of baseball.
Dan Crozier (Cazenovia), Ryan Dickt (Virginia-Wise), Austin Hauck (Sienna Heights) and Will Lucas (Akron) recorded one RBI each in the inning.
Nick Ippolito (Cal St Stanislaus), Corey Andrade (Anna Maria), Karlis Graubics (Marymount), Johnathan Nola (Walsh) and Dickt tallied the runs to give the Rapids the win.
“We were able to get a guy on and Karlis got a good bunt down that ended up being for a hit,” said Rapids manager Tyler Rost about the eighth. “We did the little things right. Dan was able to elevate a ball for the guy on third base. We just had some good timely hitting finally.”
‘They got base hits; got guys on base,” said Ridgemen manager Joe Shallenberger. “That was the difference in the game. They put the ball in play and got those timely hits.”
Tommy Haas (Arkansas-Pinebluff) was 2-for-4 on the night and recorded a double. Ippolito was also 2-for-4.
The Rapids’ pitching was solid on the night. John Kopicky (Ohio Northern) started and allowed one run on seven hits with seven strikeouts in seven innings. Ryan Chamberlain (Pitt-Bradford) came out of the bullpen in the eighth and got the win, while Breton LaRose (Sacred Heart) threw the ninth.
“Our pitchers did a great job tonight,” said Rost. “John battled for us. He limited a lot of big situations that could’ve exploded on him, and then Ryan and Breton did their thing.”
“Really just throwing fastballs worked for me,” said Kopicky. “They’re a good hitting team but I felt like I could let them hit it and let my defense do the rest for me.
I knew we needed a win tonight, and my mentality is always to put the team in the best position to give us a win. I thought of it as just another game.”
Nick Jensen (Grays Harbor) took the loss. He allowed four runs on seven hits with three strikeouts in 7.1 innings. Jacob Purcell (Clearwater Christian) and Luke Brown (Rollins) came out of the bullpen for the Ridgemen.
The Ridgemen fell below .500 to 21-22 on the season and are fighting for the last playoff spot in the NYCBL’s Western Division.
The two teams face off again Wednesday in Rochester at 7 p.m.
“We have to look at it as a 0-0 fresh start tomorrow,” commented Shallenberger. “We got a new game at our place and we’re going to try to return the favor.”
The Rapids improved to 18-23 on the season.
“We just need to focus on one game at a time,” said Rost. “Don’t worry about the playoff race or anything like that, just focus on tomorrow when we go to Rochester because I’m sure they’re going to want to beat us. We have to come ready to play.”
Written by Abby Schmidt, junior year business and communications major at Houghton College
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