A Section III Class C-2 championship now belongs to the Bishop Grimes baseball team.

With an emphatic effort, both from pitching ace Chris Schad and a lineup that just kept on hitting, the no. 2 seed Cobras blanked top seed and defending champion Beaver River 9-0 in Wednesday night’s Class C-2 final at Rome’s DeLutis Field.

It started at NBT Bank Stadium last Tuesday night in the C-2 semifinals, where Grimes needed a tremendous pitching effort from Tom Steinberg and some late-game heroics at the plate to fight off no. 6 seed Weedsport 3-1.

They had split two regular-season meetings, the Cobras winning big, 16-4 on April 25, but the Warriors getting even in the rematch 2-0 on May 17.

Thus, Weedsport didn’t get rattled when Grimes took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first as Schad doubled and raced home on Wyatt Myers’ single. Over the next four innings, Warriors pitcher Shaun Ferguson kept the Cobras quiet, retiring 10 in a row at one point.

Steinberg, for his part, blanked the Warriors until the fourth, when a single and Alex Okal’s triple tied it, 1-1. But after that, Steinberg struck out the side and went 1-2-3 in the fifth and sixth innings, waiting for some offensive help.

In the fifth, Trevor Pokines’ two-out triple gave the Cobras a chance to reclaim the lead, but he was stranded. But in the sixth, Ferguson hit Schad, and with Vince Commisso on to run for Schad, Myers struck again with a triple to the wall that scored Commisso, and would trot home on Chris Hendrick’s sacrifice fly.

With that two-run cushion, Steinberg gave up a leadoff walk in the top of the seventh before recording his 10th and 11th strikeouts and inducing a liner back to the mound to end a complete-game effort where he held Weedsport to three hits.

Less than 24 hours later, Grimes found itself in Rome, dealing with Beaver River and pitching Schad on three days’ rest after he had thrown against Dolgeville in the May 24 C-2 quarterfinal.

Immediately, the Cobras’ bats made life easier for Schad. Jack Rotondo led off the game with a single, moved to second on Steinberg’s single, and with a groundout and Myers sacrifice fly scored the game’s first run.

Another run followed in the second, Jim Perra racing home on a double steal, and Grimes struck twice in the third to make it 4-0, an error leading to runs scored by Steinberg and Myers.

Meanwhile, Schad, showing no signs of fatigue, mowed down the Beaver River lineup, holding them to three hits and not allowing a walk while striking out eight.

Things were clinched when the Cobras scored twice in the sixth, loading the bases with no one out before Joe Arrigo and Rotondo hit deep fly balls to score the runs. A three-run seventh inning followed as Hendrick doubled for his second RBI of the day and Schad finished off the complete-game shutout.

On Friday at 4:30, Grimes returns to NBT Bank Stadium to face South Lewis for the overall sectional Class C title. The Falcons edged Pulaski 3-2 for the C-1 championship just hours after finding out that the father of head coach Chad Brown had passed away.