By the time the Cazenovia baseball team made its way back from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, it knew just what it needed to improve in order to get close to the standards it set last spring.
The Lakers had lost its season opener to Homer before heading south, and then took on Mercer Island, from Washington State, where it dropped a 12-2 decision.
The Islanders scored four runs in the second and fourth innings, plus three runs in the fifth. Both Cazenovia runs came in the fourth, scored by Jack Donlin and Jack Byrnes.
Turning it around against Clarke High School, Cazenovia prevailed 10-8 for its first win of the season, steadily building an 8-2 advantage by the fifth inning.
Clarke rallied, though, so the Lakers’ pair of seventh-inning runs proved decisive as Byrnes had to get the last two outs in relief of Donlin.
At the plate, Donlin went three-for-five with a double, two singles and two RBIs. Jacob Grevelding also drove in a pair of runs as Byrnes, A.J. Rothfeld and Sully Clarke earned single RBIs.
Far better was Thursday’s 10-0 shutout over Newark (Section V) where nine runs in the first two innings settled matters early, Byrnes doing the rest as he held Newark to one hit and struck out nine.
Grevelding and Rothfeld both drove in a pair of runs, with Donlin adding a triple, double and RBI. Clarke dazzled on the base paths with four stolen bases and three runs scored.
While all this was going on, Chittenango got its season underway against Mexico last Wednesday afternoon and was on the wrong end of a 1-0, eight-inning decision.
Through seven innings of regulation, Bears pitcher Carlos Torres-Carman kept the Tigers’ bats quiet, but Mexico’s Connor Dubois matched him, surrendering just two hits, one each to Torres-Carman and Cooper Smith, while earning 12 strikeouts.
Though he walked seven, Torres-Carman kept it 0-0 until the eighth, when the Tigers got Trevor Coe on base and brought him home with Kian Long’s single. Jacob Poissant then blanked Chittenango in the bottom of the eighth to end it.
