Co-Lin greets Onondaga with doubleheader rout
Published 6:00 am Monday, March 21, 2005
WESSON — After fleeing the cold and snow of Syracuse, N.Y., theOnondaga Community College Lazers are feeling some baseball heat inthe Magnolia State. The Co-Lin Wolves greeted Onondaga with adoubleheader sweep Thursday at chilly Sullivan Stadium, holding theLazers hitless in the 6-2 opener and taking the nightcap 12-2 in 5innings.
Onondaga coach Chris Cafalone praised Co-Lin’s team. He watchedhis squad commit 13 errors in the twinbill.
“Today was a bad day for us,” said Cafalone. “We only had madesix errors in six games coming in. I guess the fatigue got to usbut that’s no excuse.”
Cafalone’s team (0-8) had played a pair of doubleheaders atPearl River and 1 twinbill at Jones County Junior College beforearriving on the Co-Lin campus. Their home field is covered by 6feet of snow.
“We practiced outside in the parking lot on Valentine’s Day butwe’ve had to work indoors since then because it has been snowingevery day,” said Cafalone. “We are a better team this year, muchbetter than what we showed today.”
This is the third year for Cafalone to bring his squad on aspring tour of Mississippi. “Co-Lin has a good ballclub and Coach(Keith) Case runs a quality program.”
Co-Lin (15-9) hosts Coahoma Community College Saturday for atwinbill, starting at 1 p.m. The Lazers are at Gulf Coast inPerkinston today.
Co-Lin 6, Onondaga 2
Sophomore pitcher Lance Deville tossed 6 innings of hitlessbaseball in the opener before giving way to relief pitcher MatthewTubbs in the seventh. Deville struck out 8 batters and walked 2,raising his record to 3-0 on the season.
“I was pleased to see Lance pitch a really good ballgame,” saidCo-Lin head coach Keith Case. “That’s the third good outing he’shad since coming back from surgery. I’m happy to see that.”
While Deville sat the Lazers down, Co-Lin’s bats were takingcare of business, too. Catcher Matthew Schexnayder belted a 2-runhomer in the third inning to put Co-Lin 4-0.
In the fourth, Josh Logan led off with a double and scored thefifth run on back-to-back singles by right fielder Xavier Quallsand shortstop Patrick Williams. Qualls singled in the sixth andscored on a single by Williams.
Qualls, Schexnayder, Logan and Williams had 2 hits apiece in thevictory.
Co-Lin 12, Onondaga 2
Logan led off the first with a triple to right-center field andscored on an error as the Wolves plated 3 runs. They added 4 morein the third on a 2-run double to left-center by Schexnayder andRBI singles by Jody Britt and Justin Sykes.
In the fourth, Qualls doubled and scored on a sacrifice fly byGarrett Jones.
In the sixth, catcher Adam Ogden smashed an RBI double overthird base bag for a 9-2 lead. Ogden scored on a throwing error.Qualls followed with an RBI double to left-center for an 11-2 lead.A sharp single to left by Jones plated the 12th run and concludedthe game.
Freshman southpaw Te Riley was the winning pitcher. He gave up 2runs on 3 hits, struck out 2, walked 4 and threw 2 wild pitches.Riley exited in the fifth with the bases loaded an 1 out.
Relief pitcher Will Buckels gave up a based-loaded walk to JoelBenchoff, making it 8-2. Mike Weeks hit into a rally-killing doubleplay.
“Te went out there and battled today,” said Coach Case. “Heneeds to get better command of his pitches.
“Overall, we did what we had to do to win,” Case added. “Westill aren’t making all the plays we need to make. We get the leadand then we lose focus.”
Qualls, a freshman from Brookhaven finished with 3 hits. Jonesand Schexnayder both had 3 RBIs.