CENTRAL NEW YORK – Still at no. 20 in the state Class AAA rankings, the Liverpool softball team was also quite steeled by all the tough competition it had faced on the way to a 5-3 start.
An example of this resilience was last Monday’s game against Fayetteville-Manlius where, after a rough start, Mackenzie Frani and Joelle Wike led a comeback that produced, for the Warriors, a 6-4 victory over the Hornets.
F-M got to Frani for all of its runs in the top of the first inning, and pitcher Alexis Hamilton maintained her sides’ 4-0 edge for a while, but a run in the bottom of the fourth began the Liverpool comeback.
Two more runs in the fifth made it 4-3, and then the Warriors seized the lead in the bottom of the sixth, a three-run rally as Wike ran her game total to three hits and produced a pair of RBIs.
Katia Flavin doubled and drove in two runs, with Maya Mills scoring twice as she and Ava Falvo had one RBI apiece. Frani, meanwhile, pitched six straight scoreless innings after her shaky start, amassing nine strikeouts.
Liverpool was swept in a pair of games Saturday during the Mirabito Tournament, falling 10-0 to state AAA no. 1-ranked St. Anthony’s (Long Island) and falling 8-5 to Despoit/Hancock despite Wike adding two more RBIs, with runs also driven in by Frani, Lauren Ragonese and Brooke Tyler.
Cicero-North Syracuse was riding a three-game win streak of its own when it welcomed unbeaten, state Class C no. 4-ranked Sandy Creek to the Gillette Road complex last Tuesday afternoon.
Steeled by the tough competition it had faced, the Northstars prevailed 7-3, doing most of its damage in the bottom of the third, when it batted around the entire order and produced six runs.
Given all that support, eighth-grade pitcher Mila Owens impressed, throwing a complete game and only giving up three hits while striking out six. Sydney Rockwell and Paige Pangaro each got two hits, joining Eva Farone, Aubrey Coyle and Payton Bach in the RBI column.
Back in league action on Thursday against West Genesee, the Northstars won again, 5-2, getting even for a 4-0 defeat to the Wildcats in the April 9 season opener.
A three-run third inning proved decisive, with Rockwell going three-for-three and scoring twice and Coyle driving in a pair of runs. Farone added an RBI as Kiyara Bentley pitched 4 2/3 innings before Jillian Hotaling went the rest of the way in relief, combining to hold WG to five hits.
Facing its own games during the Morabito Tournament, C-NS saw the win streak halted as it lost, 3-1, to Section I’s Tappan Zee. Hotaling pitched five solid innings and got a 1-0 lead in the third when Pangaro singled home Rockwell, but Tappan Zee tied it in the fourth and scored twice in the fifth to go in front.
Then C-NS took an 8-4 defeat to Horseheads, the Northstars again unable to hold on to an early lead as it went up 3-1 before a mid-game comeback. Coyle and Leone had two hits apiece, with Isabella Moya and Eva Farone getting RBIs as Owens and Kiyara Bembry split pitching duties.
