ANTHONY GETTINO
Sports Editor
This past week saw many of our Blue Devil squads finish out their regular season schedules and begin to prepare for the SUNYAC Championships. Men’s and women’s track and field, softball, baseball and tennis had competitions.
With their regular season finale canceled against Geneseo, Fredonia’s tennis team concluded with a 6-3 loss to SUNY Brockport.
Bella Surma was the lone victor of a point for the Blue Devils, sweeping both sets. The team’s other two points came from no contests.
The team will know if they will qualify for the SUNYAC Tournament after Sunday’s contest between Oswego and Brockport.
Softball has kept their playoff hopes alive this week after a roller coaster weekend set. The team dropped both games of its double header to Buffalo State on the road before sweeping Geneseo at home Saturday.
In the first loss to Buff State, the team couldn’t pull off a last inning rally, tallying only one run in a 10-9 loss. Delana Thomas and Marisa Sultana each had three hits in the game and Syd Merkley had three RBI.
In the second game, the team was only able to get the bat on the ball three times, with two of those off the bat of Nicole Kumro.
On senior night, the team seemed to find a new level of play. The first game ended in a 3-0 shutout for the Devils behind Katie Yudin at the mound. Evelyn Webster, Alyssa Piniewski and Kumro each drove in a run in the fourth inning.
The second game showed some swagger, as the team came back from a 4-0 deficit to win 6-5, with all six runs coming in the third inning.
Sultana drove in three with a long double, Alyssa Piniewski had an RBI single, as did Amber Piniewski.
The softball team has a double header Wednesday and can still qualify for the SUNYAC playoffs.
The baseball team also split the week, although they did so in the opposite fashion. Alfred State came to town Monday and was swept by the Blue Devils.
Sam Cestra pitched the complete game in 85 pitches and received run support off of two errors and a sacrifice grounder. The team had just three hits in the game.
The second game had a 6-3 outcome in favor of the Blue Devils. The bats came to life in this one, with 10 hits total. Three of these were from Tylor Murphy and two others came from Zach Hemphill.
On Saturday, the team took two losses at the hands of Oswego on the road. The first game ended in a 17-6 score while the second was 9-2.
Murphy and Ryan Hann had four of the team’s five total hits in the first game, while five different players each recorded one hit in the second game’s five hit effort.
The Blue Devils close out their season with a Wednesday double header at Brockport before their senior day Saturday, May 8 versus Cortland State.
Both the men’s and women’s track and field teams had their regular season finale at the Brockport Invite this past Saturday.
On the women’s side, Morgan Ashton and Ali Dixon took first and second in the 400 meter hurdles in 71.74 seconds and 75.64 seconds, while Vanessa Ryhal was able to win her heat of the 800 meter race in 2:35.15 seconds. MaryClaire Haseley took second in her heat of the 1500 meter in 5:16.4 seconds. Eleanor Clarke placed fourth in the javelin with a 30.55 meter throw.
On the men’s side, TyeRyan Burke ran a season best 51.22 second 400 to place fourth, Collin Barmore ran a season best 800 meter race in 1:56.93 to place second and Mark Schneider ran a season best in the 5k of 16:24.46 to win the event. Toby Onuoha took a second place finish in the high jump with a 1.85 meter jump.
Both squads will travel to Cortland for the SUNYAC Championships on Saturday.