On Tuesday afternoon, the Fredonia baseball team used its game vs. Penn State Behrend to bring about awareness for kidney disease and raise money for Cassidy Monroe and her family, a young lady who has suffered from kidney ailments.

The day came about largely through the efforts of junior Dan Cecilia. After losing his father this fall to a long battle with kidney disease, he decided to turn his efforts to help someone in need. Cecilia, doing his best Babe Ruth imitation, knocked a mammoth homerun over the 30-foot net beyond the left field fence on a day that was also set aside to honor his father, Paul.


Cecilia's homerun, his third of the year, put the Devils up 2-0 at the time. The Devils would roll to their fourth consecutive victory with a 6-3 win over Behrend.

The Devils scored a run in the third on a Steve Zaprowski sacrifice fly to take a 1-0 lead. Cecilia would homer an inning later.

Behrend cut the lead in half with a run in the top of the fifth a base hit by Justin Junk.

The bottom of the sixth saw the Devils tack on another run. Trot Kelly singled and advanced to second when the right fielder muffed the ball. A Ricky Mendiola single advanced Kelly to third. Ryan Carmody eventually drove in Kelly on a sac fly to make it 3-1 Fredonia.

The bottom of the eighth saw the Devils tack on three more insurance runs. Kelly got things going again with a base hit. Mendiola then doubled off the wall to plate Kelly. Derek Fie ran for Mendiola and would score following a sacrifice bunt and base hit by Kyle Sherman. Sherman came around to make it 6-1 following hits by Carmody and Zaprowski.

Behrend fought back with a pair of unearned run in the ninth, but Matt Wilhelm closed the door on the rally.

On the mound, the Devils used six different pitchers to shut down the potent Behrend offense. Tommy Morris tossed two scoreless to start. Ben Senior preserved the shutout with a scoreless third to earn the win.

Mike Bessette gave up one unearned run in two innings, and Jason Weyman tossed two shutout frames. Evan Carmello got the job done in the eighth before Wilhelm came in for the ninth. Wilhelm gave up a pair of unearned runs.

All told, the staff gave up three unearned runs, struck out five and walked five while scattering 11 hits.

Zaprowski paced the offense with two hits, two RBI, a stolen base and two line-shot outs. Cecilia, Kelly and Mendiola also rapped two hits apiece.

The game was also the second in the I-90 Cup between the two neighboring schools. Behrend claimed the traveling trophy with a 10-1 win earlier in the month. The Devils claimed the trophy until next season by virtue of its win.

Behrend, the No. 2 seed in the AMCC falls to 23-10-1.

Fredonia improves to 14-17. The team next heads to Cortland for the SUNYAC Tournament to take on the host Red Dragons. First pitch is slated for noon on Friday.