No matter the records or circumstances they face, a softball game between Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse is special, given the championship battles they have waged over the last couple of decades.
Even in this season where the Warriors are no. 4 in the state Class AA rankings and the Northstars have scuffled, the two sides engaged in a taut, tense classic Thursday afternoon, with Liverpool prevailing by a 1-0 margin.
It was Senior Day for five Liverpool players – Peyton Bellrose, Katie Yudin, Ericka Sadowski, Lauren Cerrone and Joelle Nesci. None of them were in the mood for having that occasion ruined by C-NS, whom it beat 6-0 on April 27 at the Gillette Road complex.
Still, the game eerily resembled the Warriors’ 1-0 escape against Baldwinsville exactly one week earlier, when Yudin’s seventh-inning walk-off home run broke up a scoreless duel between Bellrose and Bees ace Keeanna Wolcik.
The difference, though, was that Yudin didn’t wait until the seventh inning to deliver the key hit. Instead, it came in the bottom of the third, with Sadowski on second base. Yudin tagged a single off Northstars pitcher Gabrielle Corasaniti that allowed Sadowski to race home.
That was all Corasaniti would allow, in terms of runs. The C-NS ace limited Liverpool to five hits, two of them by Delanie Alberici, forcing Bellrose to deliver another clutch pitching effort – which she did.
All that the Northstars could manage against Bellrose was singles by Beth Bonin, Ally Thompson and Meghan Bocyck. Bellrose surrendered just one walk, to Jessica Callisto, but struck out seven and overcame a couple of errors to win again.
The lead-up to this game could not have provided a greater contrast, with Liverpool unloading on West Genesee in a 19-1 romp last Monday and blanking Fayetteville-Manlius 7-0 on Tuesday just as C-NS took narrow defeats to Baldwinsville 1-0 and Oneida 2-1.
C-NS,who had lost, 4-1, to B’ville at the Gillette Road complex on April 21, wanted payback, and for four innings that looked possible as pitcher Ariana Corasaniti got terrific defense behind her and constantly avoided trouble.
Only in the bottom of the fifth did Corasaniti wobble, loading the bases with two out before Wolcik stepped up and took a walk, allowing Haley Parker to score the game only run.
Meanwhile, Wolcik amassed 13 strikeouts through five innings and had a no-hitter going until Janelle Walters’ bunt single in the sixth. Walters made it to third before Thompson grounded out to end C-NS’s biggest threat. Shallcross singled in the seventh, but was stranded as Wolcik used her 15th strikeout to end the game.
Attempting to turn it around against defending Section III Class A champion Oneida a day later, C-NS fell behind, 2-0, on run-scoring hits from Samantha Luster and Hannah Began before the Northstars got on the board in the bottom of the fourth, Brandi Feeney scoring the run.
Gabriella Corasaniti took her turn in the pitcher’s circle and held Oneida to six hits. Still, with ample chances to pull even, C-NS could not do so, blanked in the last three innings as Indians hurlers Kyra Sholtzhauer and Kylie Chesebro combined to allow just two hits, one each by Feeney and Thompson.
Meanwhile, Liverpool, who only beat West Genesee 5-1 back on April 22, fell behind, 1-0, in the rematch thanks to a first-inning Wildcats run. But that soon vanished as the Warriors got five runs in the third and fifth innings and, for good measure, added nine runs in the top of the seventh.
Though Bellrose hit the game’s lone home run and combined with Yudin to allow just four hits, it was Nesci, with four hits and five RBIs, leading the attack as Sadowski also got four hits. Sadowski, Bellrose (who had three hits), Katie Boak, Morgan Bianco and Dana Egan got two RBIs apiece as part of a 21-hit assault.
Bellrose got to rest from pitching duties against F-M, but Yudin still spun a two-hit shutout that included seven strikeouts and just one walk allowed. Bellrose and Egan both hit solo home runs as Liverpool used a four-run sixth inning to pull away from the Hornets. Sadowski, Yudin and Jenna Wike joined Egan by getting two hits apiece.
Two days after its defeat to Liverpool, C-NS did prevail, 8-1, at Auburn, where a trio of first-inning runs created an early margin and the Northstars kept adding to it. Bonin had three hits and Victoria Dunn drove in three runs as Feeney and Bocyck had one RBI apiece. Arianna Corasaniti held the Maroons to five hits in a complete-game effort.
