To this point, the Westhill baseball team only had one game lost to the weather, an April 13 contest against Chittenango that got postponed.
Still, the Warriors had not played in a week when it ventured to Marcellus last Monday, and despite hitting and running itself out of all sorts of scoring opportunities, it still recorded a 6-0 shutout of the Mustangs.
J.C. Pena got the start on the mound, and the senior right-hander did not allow a hit until the fifth. And even when Marcellus loaded the bases with two outs in the fifth, he managed to execute a pickoff at first base to end the threat.
Meanwhile, the Warriors had hit into a triple play and two double plays in the first four innings on its way to a 2-0 lead. Then, in the top of the fifth, with two outs and the bases loaded, Mike Burton smashed a three-run double off Mustangs pitcher Bryan Carroll, breaking it open. It was Burton’s second double of the afternoon.
John Crysler and Carlo Mancini both pitched well in relief for Marcellus, but it could not get anything out of another bases-loaded situation in the sixth as Brandon Drexler, relieving Pena, threw two innings to preserve the shutout.
They would go in different directions on Wednesday, though, as Westhill lost at home to Phoenix 3-2 and Marcellus, aided by a big sixth-inning offensive outburst, beat Chittenango 15-12.
It was the Firebirds jumping on Westhill ace Ben Walsh for all of its runs in the second and third innings, two of them driven in by Bryce Plante in the top of the second, and another racing home on a wild pitch in the third.
Sam Walsh took over in relief and, for 4 1/3 innings, blanked Phoenix with five strikeouts and just two hits allowed. Trying to rally, Westhill notched single runs in the third and sixth to pull within one.
But Firebirds senior ace Adam Thoryk (who is going to St. John Fisher next year) showed tremendous poise and control. Thoryk did not walk a single batter as he struck out 10, including Pena and Ben Walsh for the game’s final two outs. Overcoming four Phoenix errors, Thoryk gave up just five hits, two of them to Jim Albright.
Going to the top of the sixth at Chittenango, the Mustangs clung to a 5-4 lead, but it erupted for 10 runs in that frame, all of them necessary because the Bears, now trailing 15-4, scored four times in both the sixth and seventh innings to nearly catch up.
Through it all, Mike Hastings kept on hitting, going four-for-five with a triple and four RBIs. Brendan Sammon doubled, tripled and scored two runs as Carroll added a pair of RBIs. Jake Welsh, Colin Smith and Adam Molinari each drove in one run as Smith pitched five innings to earn the win, recording eight strikeouts.
