When the Cazenovia baseball team enters Onondaga High School League Liberty division play this week (weather permitting), it does so much more seasoned thanks to its week of games at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina during the school break.
The Lakers started play at Myrtle Beach last Tuesday night, against Pikeview (Ohio), and had an early lead, but could not hold on to it in a 6-3 defeat.
Cazenovia went up, 2-0, by scoring twice in the top of the third inning. That lead held until the bottom of the fourth, when Pikeview put across four runs, all that it would need as it tacked on insurance runs in the fifth and sixth to counter the Lakers’ run in the top of the fifth.
Kevin Ridings, Evan Cornell and Jacob Schettine each picked up a pair of hits in their first plate appearances of the season. Ridings and Cornell managed one RBI apiece as Schettine, Casey Fenton and Evan Begley scored the runs. Schettine pitched two scoreless innings in relief of Ridings.
Against a local opponent, Johnsonville, on Wednesday night, Cazenovia lost again, this time in a 5-4 decision where it fell behind, 5-0, through four innings, and nearly made it up by scoring four runs in the fifth inning, three of them coming home on wild pitches. But the Lakers could not pull even.
Cornell, Noah Race, Eric Ketcham and Matt Mistur scored the Lakers’ runs as only Schettine managed a pair of hits and Cazenovia had just four hits overall. Cooper Holgate pitched four innings before relief stints from Peter DeCew and Alex Marshall.
Even a 10-0 defeat to Hampshire on Thursday afternoon did not dampen Cazenovia’s spirits too much, though it managed just two hits, one each by Peter DeCew and Noah Race.
And the patience for the Lakers paid off on Friday, when it wrapped up play with a 6-2 victory over Frontier, from the Buffalo suburbs.
Not only did Ridings pitch four innings and earn the win, he also got a pair of hits at the plate and earned an RBI as Holgate and Marshall helped out on the mound.
Cornell notched two hits and drove in two runs, with Begley adding an RBI, the Lakers earning three runs in the third inning to erase an early 2-0 deficit and adding a trio of runs in the sixth.
Should the weather hold, Cazenovia starts league play this week with home games Monday against Westhill (who went 1-3 in its tournament action at Myrtle Beach) and Friday against Bishop Ludden.
