Like all the other CNY Counties League baseball teams, Fayetteville-Manlius would get one chance to take its cuts against Syracuse pitcher Jeff Belge, the region’s hottest prospect and a possible early-round Major League Baseball draft pick.
It came last Tuesday afternoon at the start of a three-game series, with the Hornets making some inroads against Belge, but not enough to allow for a late-comeback once Belge left the mound as F-M lost by a 7-4 margin.
Belge, a senior left-hander, would hold the Hornets to a single hit in 5 1/3 innings and earn 12 strikeouts to overcome four walks and the lone run the Hornets got off him in the fourth inning.
By then, Syracuse led, 4-1, and it appeared to put things away when it touched up F-M reliever Mitch Hoalcraft for three runs. Hoalcraft had replaced Colin Sommers, who had gone five innings in his start. Antonio Nesci led with four hits, including a triple, plus three RBIs.
When Belge left, F-M took advantage, cutting its 7-1 deficit in half with three runs in the top of the seventh, but it didn’t prove enough. Josh Loeffler did finish with a triple and RBI while Gary Smith had two hits as he, along with Loeffler and Hoalcraft, managed one RBI apiece.
Rained out of the first game of the Syracuse series last Monday, the Hornets made it up Thursday afternoon and pulled even in the series with a 7-0 shutout that saw Anthony Nucerino dominate on the mound, holding Syracuse to three hits and gaining 10 strikeouts against three walks allowed.
F-M got to Syracuse starter Anthony Gangemi for a pair of first-inning runs and then chased him with four more runs in the bottom of the third, most of them produced by Sommers’ home run. A sixth-inning tally accounted for the final margin as Nucerino tacked on a double and RBI and Josh Loeffler also drove in a run.
The series was supposed to be decided Friday night at NBT Bank Stadium for a game that was part of the Strike Out Lou Gehrig’s Disease Classic, which raised money for the ALC Clinc at Upstate Medical Center. But it got rained out.
Bishop Grimes returned from its stay at Myrtle Beach and saw last Monday’s game against Solvay moved to the turf at Onondaga Community College, where the Cobras took an 8-2 defeat to the Bearcats. Then the weather took over, rain interrupting possible games for the rest of the week.
Only on Saturday did things resume – and when they did, Grimes lost, 9-2, to Skaneateles, who remembered how Grimes had beaten them 7-1 at Myrtle Beach a week earlier, and quickly took a 2-0 first-inning lead.
Following an exchange of runs in the second, Skaneateles got away by scoring twice more in the fourth and four times in the sixth inning off Chris Mancuso and his relief replacement, Johnny Wike, neither pitcher helped by Grimes committing seven errors.
Skaneateles pitcher Tommy Scherrer limited Grimes to single runs in the second and seventh innings and just four hits, not allowing a walk and recording six strikeouts. Trevor Pokines had two of those hits, including a double, with Mancuso and Matt Vonden Steinen (who earned an RBI and scored a run) getting the other hits.
