Playing at home Saturday, the Tompkins Cortland Community College baseball team battled a strong Finger Lakes Community College team in both games, ultimately losing both ends of the doubleheader, 14-3 and 8-1. Tompkins Cortland is now 3-11 overall and 3-7 in the Mid-State Athletic Conference. Finger Lakes improves to 25-8 overall and 12-0 in the MSAC.

Game One: Finger Lakes 14, Tompkins Cortland 3

Starting pitcher Kannon VanDuzer (Sayre, Penn./Sayre Area H.S.) was fantastic early, allowing just two hits and one run through the first four innings. When Finger Lakes pushed across a run in the third innings, the Panthers answered in the fourth with a home run by Ledy Alvarez (Guayaquil, Ecuador/Colegio Americano), tying the score at 1-1. VanDuzer started to run out of gas and the defense let him down in the fifth, allowing Finger Lakes to score seven unearned runs to take a commanding lead. Each team scored two runs in the sixth before Finger Lakes ended the scoring with four runs in the top of the seventh.  

Alvarez finished game one 3-for-4 with a home run, his sixth homer of the season and fourth in the last three games. VanDuzer went 2-for-2 at the plate and was saddled with the loss despite allowing just one earned runs through 4.2 innings.

Game Two: Finger Lakes 8, Tompkins Cortland 1 

In the nightcap, the Lakers took an early led, but couldn't put the Panthers away. Finger Lakes plated five runs in the second inning, and then managed just three runs the rest of the way. Unfortunately for the home team, the offense struggled to put things together and despite having runners on base in six of the seven innings, finished with a just a single run.

VanDuzer has another solid game at the plate, going 3-for-3. Bradley Addicott (Trumansburg/Charles O. Dickerson) drove in the lone Tompkins Cortland run on a two-out single in the fourth.

Looking ahead

The two teams are scheduled to square off again on Sunday in Canandaigua.