Sam Walsh finally returned to his favorite role as a starting pitcher – just in time for the Westhill baseball team.
Walsh’s complete-game effort, combined with selective and timely hits, helped push the top-seeded Warriors past no. 2 seed Holland Patent 5-4 to win the Section III Class B championship Tuesday at Onondaga Community College.
Going back to 2009, it’s Westhill’s fourth sectional championship in seven years, and for Walsh, a Le Moyne college-bound senior who experienced defeats to Clinton in the 2013 sectional title game and 2014 sectional semifinal, it was particularly sweet.
“It means a lot,” said Walsh, “I love this team. It’s a great group of kids.
Walsh, returning from a shoulder injury that had kept him off the mound most of the season, was making his first start since Westhill’s April trip to Myrtle Beach. He was opposed by HP’s ace, Jared Fisher, whose 6-0 record included a perfect game thrown against Canastota in mid-May.
Wild at the outset, Walsh issued three walks in the first inning. The Golden Knights turned one of them into a run when, with Kinsey Williams on third, catcher Brad Canavan accidentally threw the ball off the helmet of HP’s Nico Ramos, allowing Williams to score.
An inning later, the Golden Knights made it 2-0, as a two-out error put Jordan Dziekan on second base and Williams drove him home with a double.
Westhill cut the deficit in half in the bottom of the second on Joe Sweeny’s RBI single, but then left the bases loaded, also stranding two an inning later as Fisher kept escaping early trouble. Through three innings, the Warriors left six runners on base.
When Ryan Roland, and then Sweeny, coaxed back-to-back walks to open the bottom of the fourth, Fisher exited the mound. Left-hander Nick Palmer took over, and Canavan, perhaps atoning for his earlier error, drilled a triple to the wall that plated Roland and Sweeny, giving Westhill the lead. Canavan later scored on Chris Coates’ sacrifice fly to make it 4-2.
But that lead didn’t hold, HP pulling even, 4-4, in the top of the fifth with a walk, single and RBI groundout by Nico Ramos before another walk, to Jordan Brown, led to a three-base error on Devin Franco’s line shot to right that brought Brown home.
It was Walsh himself pushing the Warriors back in front in the bottom of the sixth, drawing a leadoff walk before another error, at shortstop, put Chris Coates on base. With two out, Jesse Chester delivered a single that allowed Walsh to cross the plate with the go-ahead run.
Now Walsh had to close it out against the top of the Golden Knights’ order. He struck out Williams and, after Fisher walked, struck out Ramos – and Canavan threw out Fisher trying to steal second to end the game and ice the sectional title.
On Saturday at 2 p.m., Westhill meets Section IV champion Oneonta in the Class B regional final at Broome Community College in Binghamton – the same venue where the state final four takes place on June 13. The Westhill-Oneonta winner would face Livonia (Section V) or Maryvale (Section VI) in the state semifinals.
