By the time the Christian Brothers Academy baseball team entered the Section III Class A playoff fray as the top seed, their two neighbors were already out of the tournament.
Still, the Brothers had to make its way through two rounds to get back to the championship game, and got started in the right way in last Thursday’s quarterfinals by getting a power surge from Webb Little and ripping past no. 8 seed Marcellus 12-1.
Any nerves CBA may have felt dissipated in the bottom of the second inning, when it struck for seven runs against Marcellus pitcher Colin Smith. The Brothers would also score in each of the next four innings against Smith and reliever Noah Hunt.
Webb Little twice belted home runs and finished with five RBIs. Sam Little drove in a pair of runs, while Camillo Spinoso, Dom Spinoso, Eric Little and William Ierlan had one RBI apiece. Nick Capozzi and Connor Gollegy both scored twice.
Emmett Dunn got the start for CBA and threw five solid innings, only allowing two hits and two walks while striking out eight. Dom Spinoso struck out the side in the sixth and seventh innings.
Now, in Saturday’s Class A semifinal at Onondaga Community College, the Brothers faced no. 5 seed Camden, who, by a 7-0 margin, had, in its quarterfinal, blanked the Oneida side that had, in the first round, ended Jamesville-DeWitt’s bid for a repeat sectional title in a 2-0 shutout.
CBA didn’t care for any of this. Instead, on a hot, humid Saturday morning, the Brothers put away the Blue Devils 5-2 with early power and a bit of improvisation.
Staked to a 3-0 lead in the first inning as Tom Benz hit a solo home run, CBA pitcher James McGlynn struggled in the bottom of the second, Camden putting together a two-run, two-out rally that only got thwarted when Camillo Spinoso tagged out the possible tying run at the plate.
But since Spinoso tagged the runner too hard, he was ejected. Juggling the lineup, CBA coach Tom Dotterer put Benz behind the plate in the top of the third – and replaced McGlynn with Webb Little, who wasn’t scheduled to pitch until a possible sectional final.
Webb Little proceeded to blank Camden the rest of the way – five shutout innings where he held Camden to two hits and struck out 10. Meanwhile, the Brothers tacked on single runs in the second and fourth innings, Sam Little doubling twice and producing a pair of RBIs.
This set up a potential classic in the sectional final Tuesday night at OCC. CBA, who at 16-5 sat at no. 10 in the latest state Class A rankings, faces state no. 3-ranked Vernon-Verona-Sherrill (19-2), who rolled past Cortland 11-3 in the other semifinal.
In that first round, when J-D fell to no. 13 seed Oneida, East Syracuse Minoa, the no. 9 seed, was three outs from a quarterfinal date with the Brothers before stumbling late in a 4-3 loss to Marcellus.
For the Red Rams, defending sectional champions, the ouster against Oneida carried a particular sting, since it had crushed Oneida 16-0 back on April 25.
Here, though, the Indians sent its ace, Cole Dubois, to the mound, and he shut down J-D’s potent lineup. The Rams got just one hit – a Gavin French single – and while French walked twice, and Dubois surrendered four other walks, he constantly got out of trouble, striking out four.
Meanwhile, Jake Binder pitched well, too, but single runs by Oneida in the first two innings held up, Rylan Baker managing a pair of hits and scoring once as Casey Rich scored the other run and Derek Connelly managed an RBI.
ESM met its own heartbreak at Marcellus despite a spirited comeback. Trailing 2-0 going to the top of the seventh, the Spartans, three outs from elimination, finally got to Mustangs pitcher Bryan Carroll for three runs, with Nick Pullano’s RBI double the big blow as he, along with Nick Castrello and Matt Hunter, scored runs.
Now protecting a 3-2 lead, ESM pitcher Brandon Breen tried to get the last three outs, but instead allowed the tying run to get on base before Jake Krawec, relieving Breen, proved unable to prevent Marcellus from putting home the tying and winning runs.
Fayetteville-Manlius, who had made a last-week surge just to get into the sectional Class AA tournament, was the no. 9 seed in a nine-team bracket and could not beat no. 8 seed Syracuse in last Tuesday’s opening round, taking a 5-2 defeat.
Kyle Walters got the start, but Syracuse got to him for three runs in the first two innings. Four relievers – Colin Sommers, Tom Flynn, Josh Loeffler and Jared Shaw – did a solid job the rest of the way, keeping the Hornets in the game.
Both of F-M’s runs came in the top of the fourth, with Sommers and Loeffler credited for the RBIs. Otherwise, Syracuse pitcher Brian Nolan contained the Hornets, only allowing four hits in a complete-game effort and striking out six.
