All season long, the Fayetteville-Manlius baseball team has hovered between happiness and despair, never landing on either side of the fence for any length of time.
The Hornets fought that dichotomy again in a three-game series against Liverpool, which opened last Monday with a solid effort that got sullied by one bad inning that accounted for most of a 9-3 defeat to the Warriors.
Both teams had scored twice in the first inning, but Liverpool broke out of that 2-2 tie when it went through the order in the bottom of the third, netting five runs, something that F-M could not overcome.
For the game, the Hornets were held to five hits, one each by Anthony Nucerino, Sean Putnam, Gary Smith, Collin Sommers and Steve Laurie. Josh Loeffler scored twice as Putnam and Sommers got credit for RBIs. Anthony Sgroi led Liverpool, going four-for-four with an RBI as Tom Bianchi drove in two runs.
In the second game of the series 24 hours later, F-M would only hope to stay so close. Instead, it lost, 23-1, to a Liverpool side that unloaded for 15 runs in the first two innings, helped in no small part by the Hornets’ porous defense that would eventually commit eight errors. Only Laurie’s sixth-inning RBI prevented a shutout.
Despite this, F-M nearly beat Liverpool in the series finale two days later, falling in a 4-3 thriller decided when the Warriors plated a run in the bottom of the sixth right after the Hornets had scored twice in the top of the sixth to tie it, 3-3.
Nucerino, Loeffler and Kyle Walters each drove in a run as Jack Grifo singled and doubled. Pitching a complete game, Nucerino hung in there despite surrendering eight hits and four walks. On Liverpool’s side, Jonah Harder went 5 2/3 innings before Nick Antonello got the final four outs in relief.
Bishop Grimes began its week on a productive note, going to Bishop Ludden last Monday and outscoring the Gaelic Knights 14-8. Having scored four times in the first inning, the Cobras squandered that edge, only to get it back when, trailing 5-4, it notched two runs in the fifth and got four runs in each of the next two innings.
Trevor Pokines, Johnny Wike and Shawn Gashi had three hits apiece, with Pokines getting three RBIs as Chris Mancuso doubled, walked three times and drove in three runs of his own. Gashi added two RBIs and Matt Vonden Steinem one RBI as Matt Tarby scored twice and Pokines managed a complete game on the mound despite all kinds of struggles.
A day later, though, Grimes lost, 1-0, to Marcellus, which couldn’t be blamed on Mancuso, who held the Mustangs to two hits in his complete-game effort, striking out four.
All that Mancuso surrendered was a fourth-inning run, driven in by Jake Schettine, that allowed Marcellus pitcher Tyler Manthey to go the rest of the way. Manthey limited t the Cobras to three hits, one each by Pokines, Camden Ciotoli and David Cifonelli.
Things were quite different in the rematch with Marcellus 24 hours later. Here, Grimes unloaded on the Cobras in a 15-1 romp where it netted four runs in the first and third innings, plus five runs in the fifth and amassed 19 hits overall.
Pokines (who struck out five and allowed five hits in a complete-game pitching effort), Cifonelli and Tarby each finished with three hits and two RBIs. Gashi also had three hits, scoring three times to match Cifonelli as Mancuso drove in two runs. Wike, Ciotoli, Shawn Gashi and Skyler Gashi each had one RBI.
This busy week for Grimes continued Friday against Westhill, a team it lost to when it played at Myrtle Beach in late April. It was close, but the Cobras fell again, 5-3, as the Warriors earned its ninth win in a row.
