Oneonta baseball selected for NCAA Tournament
The 2010 SUNY Oneonta baseball will continue its season this Wednesday, May 19 at Falcon Stadium in Auburn, N.Y. when they play its first NCAA tournament game in the program’s history against Farmingdale State at 4:30 p.m. Red Dragon head coach, Rick Ferchen, got the call from the NCAA committee early Monday morning just after 1:00 a.m. with the news that the team had received a Pool C berth into this year’s field of 55 teams.
Oneonta earned the No. 3 seed in the eight-team, double elimination, New York Region bracket of the tournament. Eight regional brackets will begin play on Wednesday with the eight winners advancing to the Div. III College World Series in Appleton, WI. The World Series will commence on Friday, May 28 and will continue through Tuesday, June 1.
Oneonta (28-11) last played on Saturday, May 8 in the SUNYAC tournament where Brockport defeated them 10-6 on a walk-off grand slam. The loss was only the first in the double elimination formatted tournament, which meant the Red Dragons still had another game to play. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and the tournament was declared complete with Brockport winning the championship and earning the automatic berth for the SUNYAC.
The baseball team makes it three teams from Oneonta this year that qualified for the NCAA tournament, which is the first time that has happened since 2000-2001. During that year, the Red Dragons sent women’s soccer, women’s basketball and softball to the NCAA tournament, which coincided with the senior year of current women’s soccer coach, Liz McGrail, who was a member of all three teams. Oneonta also has had individuals from wrestling and indoor track & field reach its respective NCAA championship this year as well.
For head coach, Rick Ferchen, now in his 15th season as the baseball coach, this is the second time that he has taken a program to the national tournament for the first time. In 1992, when Ferchen was the baseball coach at Hobart College, his squad made its first and only, tournament appearance in the history of that program.
Coach Ferchen has already announced that junior right-hander, Dave Filak (Scotia/Burnt Hills Ballston Lake), will get the start against Farmingdale. The ace of the staff is 8-0 with a 1.82 earned run average. He has recorded 96 strikeouts in 59-1/3 innings of work to date and is holding opponents to a .175 batting average.
The Red Dragons are a combined 4-6 against the other seven schools in the New York Region bracket including a 6-2 loss at Farmingdale back on Apr. 6. Oneonta is 1-2 against top-seeded Cortland (32-8), who received the other Pool C berth from the SUNYAC. The Red Dragons split with the No. 2 seed, St. John Fisher (28-12), who received one of the four Pool B berths. They defeated the No. 4 seed Skidmore (30-13), who won the Liberty League title and were 0-3 against Brockport including the conference tournament.
Oneonta enters the regional tournament hitting .319 as a team led by five starters including four seniors who are hitting .349 or better. They have also out scored their opponents 295-180 while holding its opponents to a .264 batting average.
Senior Scott Dubben (Roseboom/Cherry Valley Springfield) is Oneonta’s leading hitter at .371. He leads the team with 34 runs batted in, has scored 29 runs and has collected 39 hits.
Seniors Dan Randall (Salem/Salem) (.350), Carmine Caputo (Mahopac/Mahopac) (.360) and Steve Gauck (Clifton Park/Shenendehowa) (.352) join classmate Dubben at the top along with sophomore Kevin Knack (Ghent/Ichabod Crane), who is hitting .349. Randall leads the team with 48 hits, seven home runs and 84 total bases to go with 31 runs batted in and 35 runs scored. Caputo has a team best 18 stolen bases and has scored 33 runs while collecting 41 hits.
Gauck and Knack both have four triples and are third and second in total bases with 62 and 75 respectively.
Overall, the pitching staff has an ERA of 4.10 while recording 313 strikeouts as a staff. After Filak, senior Brett Meservey (Catskill/Catskill), and sophomores Jeff Carter (Clifton Park/Shenendehowa) and Corey Andresen (Deposit/Deposit) have the most starts for Oneonta this spring.
Meservey has been the No. 2 starter this season and has posted a 3-2 record with a 4.96 ERA in nine starts. He has allowed 51 hits in 45-1/3 innings and has recorded 42 strikeouts.
Carter has a 3-1 record with a 4.57 ERA in seven starts while Andresen has a 3-2 record with a 5.88 ERA in six starts.
SUNY Cortland, who is the host school for this year’s regional tournament, will have a tournament site for all live stats, box scores and play-by-plays. There will be a link from both the Oneonta and Cortland athletics department main page.
There will also be a link to live radio broadcasts of selected games in the regional on the tournament web page.
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New York Region Bracket (8 teams)
Cortland (32-8) – Pool C from SUNYAC
St. John Fisher (28-12) – Pool B from Empire 8
Oneonta (28-11) – Pool C from SUNYAC
Skidmore (30-13) – Automatic from Liberty League
Keene State (26-15) – Pool C from the Little East Conference
Farmingdale State (24-15) – Automatic from the Skyline Conference
College at Brockport (23-16) – Automatic from SUNYAC
Castleton State (32-13) – Automatic from North Eastern Athletic Conference
Complete game schedule – changes in the schedule will be due to weather
Day 1 – Wednesday, May 19
Game 1 -Team 4 vs. Team 5, 10 a.m.
Game 2- Team 1 vs. Team 8, 1:15 p.m.
Game 3 -Team 3 vs. Team 6, 4:30 p.m.
Game 4 -Team 2 vs. Team 7, 7:45 p.m.
Day 2 – Thursday, May 20
Game 5 - Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2, 10 a.m.
Game 6 - Loser Game 3 vs. Loser Game 4, 1:15 p.m.
Game 7 - Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2, 4:30 p.m.
Game 8 - Winner Game 3 vs. Winner Game 4, 7:45 p.m.
Day 3 – Friday, May 21
Game 9 - Winner Game 6 vs. Loser Game 7, 10 a.m.
Game 10 - Loser Game 8 vs. Winner Game 5, 1:15 p.m.
Game 11 - Winner Game 7 vs. Winner Game 8, 4:30 p.m
Game 12 - Winner Game 10 vs. Winner Game 9, 7:45 p.m.
Day 4 – Saturday, May 22
Game 13 - Winner Game 12 vs. Loser Game 1, 1 p.m.
Game 14 - Winner Game 11 vs. Winner Game 13, 5 p.m.
Day 5 – Sunday, May 23
Game 15 – Winner Game 14 vs. Loser Game 14 (if necessary), 1 p.m.
