There was no better way for the Baldwinsville baseball team to have a breakout in time for the start of the Section III Class AA playoffs than to do so against the Liverpool side that has led the CNY Counties League standings most of the way.
Liverpool, in fact, did not lose a game until back-to-back shutout defeats to Cicero-North Syracuse on May 8-9, but the Warriors pulled out the last game of that series 3-2 and then, last Monday afternoon, unleashed Jeff DeStefano, who nearly by himself handed the Bees a 5-0 defeat.
In a complete-game pitching effort, DeStefano limited B’ville to four hits, walking two but striking out five. Not content to dominate on the mound, DiStefano also slammed a three-run home run off Bees pitcher Nate Valentine in the third inning.
This added to a 2-0 lead the Warriors attained in the first as Jake Evans and Jacob Sisto had run-scoring hits. Valentine, along with relievers Ryan Carson and Casey Collins, blanked Liverpool over the last four innings, but the Bees could not get anything on the board against DiStefano despite hits from Anthony May, Cam Williams, David Cerqua and Carson Hayes.
A day later, at Liverpool, B’ville turned to ace Cameron Morrissey, and he came through again in a 7-2 Bees victory, holding the Warriors to four hits while earning six strikeouts against two walks allowed.
Despite this, B’ville trailed, 2-0, partially due to Destefano’s second home run in as many days, before breaking through against Liverpool starter Jonah Harder during a fifth inning where it batted around and scored six runs overall.
Hayes, May and Matt Mercurio each produced a pair of hits, while Cam Williams and Jarrod Williams joined May and Mercurio in the RBI column. May scored twice as single runs were scored by Cerqua, Mercurio, Zach Bush and Tom McKee.
B’ville made it back-to-back wins on Wednesday in a 10-0 shutout over Corning-Painted Post (Section IV). Jack Andres tossed six scoreless innings, giving up just three hits, while at the plate the Bees roared out to an eight-run edge through three innings.
Hayes and Alex Robinson both produced three hits, accounting for half of B’ville’s total of 12. Jarrod Williams drove in two runs as Hayes, Robinson, Bush and Cam Williams earned one RBI apiece.
Weather pushed the final game of the B’ville-Liverpool series to Friday afternoon, but the delay did little to help the Bees, who fell to the Warriors 11-1.
Led by Tom Bianchi’s double, triple and five RBIs, Liverpool scored all of its runs in the middle stages – five runs in the third inning, three runs apiece in the fourth and fifth innings. B’ville didn’t break up the shutout until Bush’s single drove home Cerqua in the bottom of the seventh.
This busy week (five games in six days) concluded Saturday with B’ville handling Oswego 8-2, giving up both of the Buccaneers’ runs in the first inning, but then seeing Morrissey, Nate Valentine and Jason Savocool combine for a shutout the rest of the way that included nine total strikeouts.
Still down 2-1, the Bees blitzed Oswego for seven runs in the bottom of the third. Bush, Hayes and Robinson each got two RBIs, with Cerqua and Cam Williams also driving in runs. May had two hits and scored twice.
Meanwhile, in softball, Baldwinsville lost, 6-3, to Cortland on Friday, and were trailing again in Saturday’s game against West Genesee before a big sixth inning, featuring plenty of power, helped the Bees defeat the Wildcats 8-3.
Reflecting what happened in the baseball game between B’ville and Oswego, all of the runs were allowed in the first inning, but here the rally didn’t happen until the sixth, when the Bees tagged WG pitcher Kayla Hoovler for eight runs, five of them driven in on Kayla Young’s three-home run and two more when Claire McAllister went deep.
Chloe Branshaw and Shelby Stisser also drove in runs during this sixth inning, which saw Young reward herself for the six strong innings she pitched following Jenna Kocik’s struggles at the outset.
A day later, each of the B’ville diamond sides found out they had no. 5 seeds in their respective Section III Class AA playoff brackets. For the softball Bees, it means playing a quarterfinal Thursday against no. 4 seed Auburn, while the baseball Bees reunited with no. 4 seed West Genesee in Camillus for its quarterfinal match-up.
