St. John Fisher College’s Phil Pettinella of the baseball team has been selected by the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) as the ECAC Upstate Championship Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. The sophomore has also been named as the College’s Male Athlete of the Week for the week ending May 10, 2009.
Pettinella led Fisher to three wins in the ECAC Upstate Championship Tournament, as the No. 2 seed Cardinals advanced through the four-team field to claim the Championship. He batted .538 in the three games (7-for-13), while scoring a team-high seven runs. He also posted three runs batted in, tripled twice and blasted his sixth home run of the season.
The Cardinals opened the week with a 10-8 win over the Golden Eagles of No. 3 SUNY Brockport. Pettinella was 2-for-4 in the game with a home run in the first inning and a sacrifice fly in the four-run Fisher seventh. The Cardinals had led twice in the game at 3-0 and 6-3, but Brockport rallied to take an 8-6 lead before Fisher made the final push late in the game to earn the win.
Pettinella came through again with two hits and three runs scored in the Cardinals’ 11-8 upset win of No.1 SUNY Fredonia that advanced Fisher to the finals. The Cardinals used four runs in the top half of the first in the wire-to-wire win, and added four more in the fifth frame to take an 8-4 lead. Pettinella singled and came around to score an unearned run in the Fisher sixth, as the Cardinals put the game out of reach, 11-6, with three more runs.
In the final game, the lefty outfielder picked up his second triple of the week, and finished 3-for-5 with two runs scored, as Fisher hung a 12-3 loss on Brockport. Although the Golden Eagles trimmed a 4-0 lead to just one run after four innings, the Cardinals scored a run in each of the final four innings, including a five-run sixth, while holding Brockport scoreless to earn the win.
For the season he finished with a .345 batting average (48-for-139), while tying for the team lead with six home runs. He collected 31 RBI and led the team with 90 total bases.
Fisher finished the season with a 22-17 overall record and rallied to win its last five games.