Plattsburgh, N.Y. - Rebounding from a deficit twice over the course of the nine innings, the Clarkson University Baseball team would earn a 12-9 non-league victory at Plattsburgh State, Wednesday afternoon.
Clarkson improves to 12-10 overall and will welcome Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to Jack Phillips Stadium at Snell field, Saturday and Sunday for a Liberty League cross-division series. Plattsburgh State drops to 9-12 overall with Wednesday's result counting as the team's 10th loss in a row.
Jackson Pam would get the bottom half of the opening inning underway with a single and a stolen base as Plattsburgh looked to jump on the board early. After a sacrifice fly moved Pam to third, another fly-out, this time to center from Michael Piccirillo would be deep enough to score the Cardinal's leadoff and make it 1-0.
Clarkson provided an immediate response in the top of the second as Nolan Merrow, James Mason and Beau Vardion all reached base before the first out of the frame. Christian Barley would do well to stay alive in a 2-2 count, fouling off two pitches before connecting on a towering fly to right field that was eventually caught but would score Merrow and move Mason to third. In the next at-bat, Vardion would swipe second on a designed run that the Plattsburgh catcher fed into as he would fire the ball to second, allowing Mason to sprint home on the throw and just beat the tag on the throw back to make it 2-1.
Another Cardinal run in the latter half of the second knotted things up at 2-2 but another response from the Knights would provide an advantage in the third. With one out, James Chagnon produced a double to the right center gap before advancing to third on a grounder to the shortstop. Mason then kept the inning alive with a double of his own to the same spot to allow Chagnon to jog across home and make it 3-2.
The Golden Knights would then tack on four runs in the fourth inning as they threatened to continue to pull away. After a fly-out for the first putout of the inning, Kyle Ventola, Zach Rider and John Swartz would all reach to juice the bases with still just one out. Chagnon then mustered his second hit of the ball game with a single to left that scored both Rider and Ventola to push the score to 5-2. A groundout for the second out of the frame advanced both Chagnon and Swartz to second and third before an error by the second baseman off a hit from Mason would be enough to plate both runners as Clarkson would lead 7-2.
Plattsburgh would counter with four runs of their own in the bottom half of the fourth before adding another two in the fifth to flip the lead to 8-7, in favor of the hosts. However, this lead would again be short-lived as Clarkson managed to get three in the top of the sixth. David Harris would lead off the inning with a triple in his first at-bat of the game and then score as a Chagnon grounder would be mishandled by the shortstop to tie the contest. After advancing to second on a single from CJ Cartier, the 100th hit of Cartier's career, Chagnon would then score as a bunt from Mason was fielded by the pitcher but thrown past the first baseman to put Clarkson back in the lead. With Cartier moving to third on the throw, a double off the bat of Aidan McGuire to the left-field wall, brought Cartier across safely, making it 10-8 Golden Knights.
Clarkson tacked on two more insurance runs in the top of the ninth as Harris would produce a sacrifice fly to center, deep enough for Joe Figliolino to score and move Aidan Kuefner to third, and an error by the shortstop allowed Clarkson to go up 12-9 into the final half-inning.
Ryan Petrie would enter the contest on the mound in the final frame as the sixth Golden Knight pitcher of the afternoon and proceed to force two strikeouts and a pop-up to send Clarkson back to Potsdam with the win.
Chagnon, Mason and Vardion all finished with two hits apiece, leading a 12-hit afternoon for the Golden Knights. Chagnon also drove in two runs while scoring three himself as Clarkson would hit four doubles and a triple in the victory. Jason McGee would get the win in relief as the Knights would not trail again after the top of the sixth inning. The senior gave up just two hits and one run over 12 batters faced.
