BALDWINSVILLE – Having already witnessed the end of one long championship drought in a Section III Class AA championship game two years ago, the Baldwinsville baseball team was in no mood to go through this again.
That seemed a real possibility early in Saturday’s sectional final, when the top-seeded Bees trailed by six runs to the no. 2 seed, West Genesee, which had not claimed a sectional title in 44 years.
But unlike 2019, when Fayetteville-Manlius won its first-ever sectional crown at B’ville’s expense, these Bees would storm back and, with two huge rallies, charge out in front to defeat the Wildcats 13-7 and take back the crown it las held in 2018.
An enormous crowd was on hand, catching both this game and the pair of lacrosse sectional finals taking place a few hundred yards away at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium.
What they saw, on the diamond, was a B’ville side which weathered a third-inning nightmare that quickly erased an early 1-0 lead.
With two out and two on, Nick Jessen hit a fly ball that got dropped in right field. That was the first of four errors in a matter of minutes that led to six WG runs, half of them racing home on Jacob Klementowski’s bases-clearing double.
The crucial moment in B’ville’s comeback came in the bottom of the third, again with two outs. With a runner on, Aiden Milburn sent a Jessen pitch deep over the left-field fence, right along the foul line. After a discussion, the umpires ruled it was fair, a home run.
Though the Wildcats still led 6-3, the Bees had got to Jessen, considered the Wildcats’ ace, and that confidence would carry over into the bottom of the fourth after WG had tacked on another run to make it 7-3.
A walk and two well-placed grounders loaded the bases with one out without the ball leaving the infield before Kai Girard struck for a two-run single that cut the Wildcats’ lead in half.
Another ground ball made it 7-6, and when Milburn returned to connect on a two-run double, B’ville had the lead for good, but it still wasn’t done, loading the bases again and seeing another run score when Eric Korzeniewski, who relieved Jessen, uncorked a wild pitch.
Just as important as moving out in front was having the Bees’ pitching settle down. Gavin MiIller, in relief of Milburn, tossed a scoreless fifth inning to preserve B’ville’s 9-7 lead.
Then, as Nick Arvantides took his turn on the mound for the last three innings and kept WG’s bats quiet, the Bees settled matters by striking for four more runs in the bottom of the sixth, two of them scoring on Griffin Seeber’s single.
With a seven-team field for the sectional tournament, B’ville was the only team with a bye straight into the semifinals, where it would pull away from no. 4 seed Rome Free Academy to prevail 8-0.
Having gone eight innings to oust Liverpool 1-0 two days earlier, the Black Knights did all it could to hang close with the Bees early after it gave up a first-inning run.
The game was close until the bottom of the fifth, when B’ville knocked out RFA starter Damon Camponaro and plated five runs, then added two more runs in the sixth.
Arvantides, Girard and Perry Chetney had two hits apiece, with Milburn and Matt Carner each scoring twice to match Arvantides.
Meanwhile, pitcher Chris AuClair tossed a complete-game shutout, allowing three hits and two walks while striking out nine. More importantly, his work allowed the rest of the Bees’ pitchers to rest before the final – where they would struggle at first, but flourish at the end and bring a championship home to B’ville.
