By PAUL GOTHAM
OLEAN, N.Y. — For the last week of the New York Collegiate Baseball League regular season, the Olean Oilers staved off elimination.
Monday night at Bradner Stadium, the Oilers avoided a post-season elimination game.
Brandon Schlimm (St. Bonaventure) took a shutout into the eighth, and Johnny Lapolla (Suffolk) paced the offense as Olean swept the Western Divisional Series (2-0) with a 3-2 victory over the Geneva Twins.
Schlimm scattered four hits and three walks over seven innings before facing trouble in the eighth. The right-hander struck out four and got out of a fourth-inning jam with some help from Lapolla.
With runners on first and second, Geneva’s Luke Waldek (Minn St. Comm. & Tech Coll.) drilled a shot to the right side of the infield. Lapolla snared the line drive off his shoe tops and alertly fired to Cole Peterson (St. Bonaventure) covering the bag at second for the inning-ending double play.
“I got really lucky,” Schlimm said. “Johnny made a great play. They (the defense) just made great plays the whole game, and that was one of them.”
As often is the case in baseball the guy who makes the big defensive play gets a chance in the next at bat to come through on offense. Lapolla gave Olean a lead they would not surrender with a one-out single.
“Right now, when our three, four, five spot comes up we expect big things,” Olean manager Bobby Bell said. “But John has really picked it up and gotten into a nice rhythm.”
Lapolla singled through the left side of the infield and plated Sam Kysor (USC-Upstate) and Evan Ryan (Erie CC) for a 2-0 Oiler advantage.
“I saw a pitch I liked and just drove it,” Lapolla said. “Everything fell in the right place at the right time. Fastball after a curve in the dirt. I was looking fastball, and he just threw one over there. I just put the bat on the ball.”
Lapolla, who finished the regular season with six multi-hit games in the last 11, collected two hits in four trips to the plate in Olean’s first post-season series-clinching win.
“He’s really locked in since about halfway through the season,” Bell said of Lapolla. “He’s been seeing the ball really well.”
Geneva threatened again in the fifth.
Kenny Reckart (Wooster) singled to center. Austin Kearney (Carson-Newman) reached when he took an inside fastball off the wrist. Nate Roethel (St. John Fisher) moved the runners with a sacrifice bunt before Bob Barnett (Widener) loaded the bases with a walk.
The Twins looked poised to capitalize with two of the NYCBL’s top five hitters coming to the plate. Schlimm left the bases loaded setting down T.J. Pittman (Le Moyne) on strikes and getting a ground ball off the bat of Marty Napleton (St. Joseph’s Coll).
Schlimm got Pittman with an o-and-two slider.
“If you’re going to get beat, you’re going to get beat with your best pitch,” Schlimm’s battery mate, Mike Fahrman (University of Florida) explained. “That’s what we went with. Luckily, he put it in a good spot.
“We jumped ahead with a fastball away. Knowing that he’s a really good hitter we didn’t want to double up with a fastball. He hadn’t hit a changeup all night because we had hung on to it. I wanted to show it to him. He shot it back (foul). We looked to Brandon’s best pitch of the night which was his slider.”
“Mike called a great game,” Schlimm noted. “I’m glad he put that finger down.”
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Olean made it a 3-0 game in the seventh.
Aaron Phillips (St. Bonaventure) worked a one-out walk and moved to third on an Eddie Edwards III (State University of New York at Buffalo) single through the right side. Kysor followed with an RBI sacrifice fly off Geneva starter, Mitch McNabb (Marietta).
Geneva struck in the eighth. Pittman reached on an error and moved to second on a passed ball. Napleton made it a 3-1 game with a double to right center. Andy Lalonde (So. New Hampshire) then plated Napleton with a double off the fence in left center field that just missed being a home run.
Bell looked to his bullpen and brought Joe Nicolace (Nichols) into the game.
“We have to make it interesting,” Bell joked. “That’s what we do. These guys are killing me. I told them if I wasn’t bald already, I’m getting there.”
The southpaw fanned the first batter he faced but issued a base on balls to Waldek. Reckart followed with what appeared to be a base hit, but Kysor, the Olean left fielder decoyed the runner with the slightest of a gesture.
“That’s just Sam being a smart baseball player,” Bell explained. “He knows if he flashes the glove, it makes the runner stall for just a half a second, and that’s what he did out there. That’s really a baseball move.”
Lalonde hesitated long enough for Kysor to field the ball and fire a strike to third for the force out.
“If he doesn’t flash his glove,” Bell said. “It doesn’t happen.”
Nicolace retired the side in order in the ninth for the save.
With the win, Olean claims its first playoff series victory in franchise history in the first NYCBL post-season game at the recently refurbished Bradner Stadium.
“It was everything we wanted it to be,” Bell stated. “It was a good game. We came out on top. There were a ton of people here. It makes it a better atmosphere. Not for just our guys but their guys too.”
The Oilers defeated the Syracuse Jr. Chiefs in a one-game playoff during the 2013 post-season but fell to Oneonta in the league semi-finals. Olean reached the playoffs in its first season of existence in 2012 but lost to Niagara in the opening round. The Oilers missed the post-season in 2014.
“It’s real easy at the end of the summer for these guys to check out because they know how close they are to going home,” Bell continued. “These guys have bought in… They’re checking in. We’re here. We might as well win this thing. They’re getting after it.”
Bubba Hollins finished 2-for 4 on the night for Olean.
Lalonde and Napleton both had two hits.
McNabb took the loss allowing three runs on seven hits.
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