NEWS

By Paul Gotham

GENEVA, N.Y. — Around half-past ten EST Wednesday night, the playoff scenarios in the New York Collegiate Baseball League’s Eastern Division were as tangled as a weed bed in nearby Seneca Lake. A three-way tie for the final two playoff spots looked probable.

Then everything changed.

Once given up for dead, the Geneva Red Wings turned certain defeat into victory.

Leon Stimpson (Alvernia) capped a six-run comeback in the bottom of the ninth with a bases loaded single scoring the winning run as the Red Wings shocked the Adirondack Trail Blazers, 15-14 in front of 706 fans on Senator Mike Nozzolio Night at McDonough Park.

Down 14-9, seven straight Red Wings reached base before the league’s top closer, Geoff Soja (Niagara) came on to face Stimpson.

“His ball tails away a lot,” Stimpson said of Soja. “It’s got unbelievable movement. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to pull it. I was going to have to hit it to the right side. I told myself to hit the top part of the ball.  I saw it coming. I saw the top part, and I swung as hard as I can at it; man, it got through.”

Stimpson sent a one-strike offering through the ride side of a drawn infield and plated Brain Sullivan (Clark) with the tying and Joe Blair (Mid-Continent Univ.) with the winning run.

Soja came into the game having not allowed an earned run for the entire season. He is 1-0 with eight saves in 20 appearances for the second-place Trail Blazers. Read more...