ONEONTA – Cherry Valley-Springfield suffered a crushing defeat to G-MU in the 2009 Tri-Valley League championship game. Friday afternoon at SUNY Oneonta, the Patriots did all of the crushing – the ball and the Raiders for that matter.
CV-S denied G-MU a second straight league championship opening with six runs in the first inning, and building its lead to 12-2 after three innings in a 13-4 rout of the Raiders.
The victory avenges a 10-3 loss from earlier this season, a 7-6 title loss a year ago, and 15-3 defeat in last year’s regular season matchup. In last year’s final G-MU rallied with four runs in its last at-bat.
“Right now they’re a hot team,” said G-MU coach Jim Johnson. CV-S has now won six straight games after posting a 5-6 mark through the first 11 games. “I was surprised by how easy we beat them the first time around. They faced the same pitcher today (Alex Schmidt), and we won by seven.”
The Raiders (11-5) had the early advantage with two hits in the first inning, the second a soft infield liner by Brendan Zucchi that fell in between the pitcher and second baseman to score the initial run. After that, it was all CV-S.
Sam Dubben tied the game with a sharp RBI double to left center. Some early battles with control by Schmidt led to a walk to Ben VanAlstine to load the bases. Dick Rockwell hit a routine grounder to shortstop, but a bad throw to G-MU second baseman Nick Sebeck went into right field scoring two runs. Scott Stiles added a two-run single upping the advantage to 5-1.
“They hit Alex pretty well after not hitting him well the first time,” Johnson said. “They came out, had a couple of hits, we made some errors, and they just gained confidence.”
Stiles and Rockwell continued their hitting finishing with three RBI apiece, and winning pitcher Brett Adams had three hits and two RBI. He allowed eight G-MU hits in the contest in a complete-game victory.
Zucchi had three hits for the Raiders in the loss.
“It would have been nice to repeat as league champions, but we were just happy to be there,” Johnson said. “We only lose one senior, so we should be right back in the fight next year as well.”
A bright spot for the Raiders was the relief pitching of Jon Scofield, who pitched three innings and allowed just a single run.
G-MU 110 110 0 4 8 5
CV-S 633 001 x 13 16 4
Alex Schmidt (L), Jon Scofield (4) and Corin Todd. Brett Adams (W) and Sam Dubben. Doubles: (G) Demario Reed Corin Todd, Brenden Zucchi, (C) Josh Stalter, Sam Dubben, Tyler Cade.
