SYRACUSE – On a spring Sunday evening, Fayetteville-Manlius baseball players, coaches, parents and students congregated on the field at Onondadga Community College, celebrating a Section III Class AA championship that a few weeks earlier seemed completely improbable.
And yes, this was 2022, not 2019.
Somehow, the Hornets replicated the exact formula perfected by its predecessors three years earlier, rising from a no. 5 seed to upend the sectional bracket, capped on Sunday night when it scored in each of the first six innings and defeated no. 2 seed West Genesee 12-5.
“The kids worked hard all year long,” said F-M head coach Cory Nelson. “But when we got into the sectional (playoffs) we really got our confidence going.”
Chris Hoalcraft, whose three hits and four RBIs highlighted the sectional final, said the attention given to other teams benefited the Hornets.
“There were no expectations for us,” said Hoalcraft. “But we played together, and winning this means everything.”
Actually F-M’s regular-season record of 6-12 was worse than that famed 2019 team. But once it survived extra innings to beat no 4 seed Utica Proctor in the May 24 opening round, momentum picked up, carrying over into the semifinal at OCC two nights later against top seed Cicero-North Syracuse.
No one other than the Hornets had beaten the 18-2 Northstars all season – but F-M took full advantage of every mistake made by C-NS and prevailed by a score of 8-5.
F-M fell behind 2-0 in the first inning when Bryce Zicaro, the starting pitcher, poked a two-run double. But the Hornets got a run in the second when Hoalcraft’s fly ball turned into a double and he scored on Michael Dutch’s sing.e
Even after C-NS made it 3-1 in the third, the Hornets kept on pressing and, in the top of the fourth, went ahead for good with a three-run rally started by Hoalcraft’s double, continued when Max Danaher’s fly ball was not caught, and included a bases-loaded walk and error.
Another Northstars error in the fifth led to two runs scoring on a Sam Kuss single, which made it 6-3. With two out in the bottom of the fifth, C-N loaded the bases against relief pitcher Colin Mott, who then exited and saw his replacement, Kuss, walk two batters home. But Kuss did get Jake Lukasiewicz to strike out, keeping it at 6-5.
F-M then hit for two more runs in the top of the sixth on a James Mason RBI single and when Kuss was hit with the bases loaded. Then Kuss and Seth Albert blanked the Northstars the rest of the way, earning a chance to deny West Genesee (who beat Baldwinsville 2-1 in the other semifinal) its first sectional title since 1977.
The Wildcats threw its ace, Ryan Klementowski, who shut out the Hornets 4-0 when they last met may 18. Nelson said the key to facing Klementowski this time was working counts and hitting his fastball before he switched to breaking pitches.
That’s exactly what happened after a dropped pop fly with two out in the top of the first ignited a two-run rally, Mason driving home Tom Woodridge with a triple and Hoalcraft getting an RBI single. F-M then loaded the bases and forced WG to take Klementowski out.
Though the Hornets did not getting anything further in that inning and WG promptly scored four times in the bottom of the first, taking advantage of F-M’s own fielding mistakes, the fact that Klementowski was out meant that the Wildcats had to go to its bullpen far earlier than it wanted.
Pouncing on this, the Hornets added a run in the third and then, in the top of the third, took the lead for good. Hoalcraft beat out an infield hit to ignite a rally and scored on Ethan Powell’s single, with Albert’s fly ball and Dutch’s single bringing home two more runs.
WG tried seven different pitchers, but only met with more frustration. Hoalcraft struck again in the fourth with an RBI double down the left-field line and Eitan Spinoza doubled home another run after the Wildcats had cut it to 6-5 in the bottom of the third.
Capping his memorable night, Hoalcraft stepped up in the top of the fifth and crushed a pitch over the left-field fence for a two-run home run. That made it 10-5, and the Hornets added two more runs in the sixth driven in by Albert and Dutch.
Meanwhile, Danaher settled down after his first-inning woes, only giving up one run in his next five innings before Albert closed it out. Danaher said that his ability to self-diagnose problems helped him adjust and pitch better in the game’s middle stages.
Danaher might pitch again this Saturday when F-M faces Section II champion Saratoga Springs in the Class AA regional final at Amsterdam’s Shuttleworth Park.
For now, though, F-M could celebrate an accomplishment that, in Danaher’s words, “feels better than anything.”
