SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.— The Skidmore College baseball team played some of its best ball of the season in a doubleheader loss at #8 SUNY Cortland. The Thoroughbreds lost the first game 7-4 and dropped the second game in 5-4 in extra innings.
 
Skidmore is 10-20 and will host Middlebury College on Sunday at 12 in a Senior Day doubleheader. Cortland is 31-7.
 
After allowing a first inning Red Dragon run in the first game, Skidmore scored one in the second on a Steven Gilbert single and then took a 3-1 lead with two in the third on a Mat Marino home run and Shankar Mani RBI single.
 
Cortland tied it with two in the third, but the Thoroughbreds went back in front in the fourth, 4-3 on Pat Geiger's ground rule double.
 
The Red Dragons retook the lead with two in the fifth and then added single runs in the sixth and seventh for the 7-4 final.
 
Daniel Dasgupta, Josh Brown, and Mike Fogerty were 2-4. Spencer Anderson (1-5) went 6.1 innings, allowing seven runs (five earned) on nine hits. Jay Gamboa had 1.2 innings of scoreless relief.
 
The Thoroughbreds found themselves down 4-0 after five innings in the second game. Skidmore started a wild comeback in the sixth inning when  Fogarty took an 0-1 pitch over the left field wall for the first run.
 
The Thoroughbreds forced extra innings with three runs to tie it 4-4 in the seventh. Brown had a two-run single. Shawn Klier made tied it with an RBI single.
 
Cortland threatened in the seventh.  With the winning run on second, Skidmore starter Andrew Aikins reached back struck out the next two Red Dragon batters to send the game into extra innings.
 
Skidmore had a chance to take the lead in the eighth, but Nick Fronte was thrown out at the plate when he tried to score on a Ryan Strickland hit to center.
 
In the bottom of the eighth, Cortland got the winner when pinch runner John Tardif avoided the tag on the way home on a sacrifice fly.
 
Klier finished 4-4 with an RBI. Fogarty, Strickland, and Fronte had two hits each. Aikins allowed four runs  (one earned) on eight hits in seven innings. He had six strikeouts and walked one.  Joe Morrissey (0-1) took the loss in relief.