FORT MYERS, Fla. – Five pitchers combined to surrender three earned runs over a pair of games as the Skidmore College baseball team opened the 2026 season with a sweep of Baruch College at the Gene Cusic Collegiate Classic in Fort Myers. The Thoroughbreds won game one, 6-2, on a 10-strikeout performance from Quinn Hocom, and then won 2-1 in game two behind a one-hit Chase Siegel start of five innings.
 
Game 1 – Skidmore 6, Baruch 2

• Skidmore scored two in the bottom of the first inning, and after Baruch tied it in the third, answered with two more in the bottom half of the inning and a pair of insurance tallies in the fifth for the 6-2 final.
• Matthew O'Neill had three hits in four trips in his collegiate debut. He led off the bottom of the first with an opposite-field double and scored on an error. O'Neill scored three times.
• Eddie Galvao scored the other three. He was 1-for-3 with two walks and a two RBI home run in the third that have Skidmore the lead for good.  After drawing a walk in the first, he scored on a pair of wild pitches.
• The Bearcats scored the two to tie it in the second on a bases-loaded hit by pitch followed immediately by a walk.
• O'Neill led off both the third and fifth innings with a single and stolen base. He scored on Galvao's blast to left in the third, and came around on a Quinn McDonald single to center in the fifth. Mac Cady drove in the sixth run with a sacrifice fly.
• Hocom retired his last seven in a row after the Baruch rally in the third. He finished with five innings pitched on two runs, 10 strikeouts, and two walks.
• Nick Palovich pitched a clean sixth, and Sam Dalsimer struck out the side in the seventh to end it.

 
Game 2 – Skidmore 2, Baruch 1

• The only hit Baruch got off Siegel was a two-out Michael Rossi single in the second inning. He also worked around a pair of hit batters to blank Baruch through five. Siegel struck out eight and walked one.
• Charles Modlin got six outs to preserve the lead and get the save.
• O'Neill got two more hits; wrapping his impressive opening day at 5-for-6 with three stolen bases and four runs scored. He singles in the game's first run in the top of the third inning after an error put Nate Vandersea on second. O'Neill went to second on the play and scored two batters later on a Galvao infield single.
• Roy Longarzo led off the sixth against the new pitcher with a double for the Bearcats. He scored the lone run on a two-out infield error.
• Modlin stranded the potential tying run at second base in the seventh with a swinging strikeout to end it.

 
UP NEXT
Skidmore will play Rockford University in a doubleheader on Monday beginning at 9 a.m.