Whether they were in town or not, each of the area’s high school baseball teams enjoyed warmer weather and drier conditions to get in as many games as possible during the April break.
Jamesville-DeWitt earned its second straight shutout last Monday, against Auburn, blanking the Maroons 5-0 at Falcon Park as A.J. Ortega pitched 4 2/3 innings and Carter Kowalczyk went the remaining 2 1/3 innings, combining on a two-hitter.
Single runs in the third, fourth and sixth innings, plus a two-run seventh inning, provided enough offense. Zach Goodson got three hits and Mark Toscano had two hits as they, along with Parker Wing, Mateo Santos and Murphy Foss, had one RBI apiece.
Back home for the rematch with Auburn on Tuesday, J-D completed the sweep, rallying to win 6-3 as it used a run in the fifth inning and three runs in the bottom of the sixth to erase the Maroons’ 3-2 advantage.
Wing led the comeback, recording three RBIs as Bobby Galusha scored twice, with Santos and Nolan Giblin driving in single runs. Nick Brotzki picked up the win, going three innings and striking out six with pitching help from Scottie O’Bryan and Jake Ellithorpe.
East Syracuse Minoa started the week well, handling Cortland 10-2 last Monday as it scored twice in the first inning to go in front, but needed a four-run fifth inning and three-run sixth inning to get away from the Purple Tigers.
Ricky Neuser pitched five innings and earned the win, getting help from a 14-hit attack as Ryan Seburn had three of those hits. Josh Gilkey and Colin Williams each had two hits and two RBIs, with Sam Jenkins and Cameron Cronk also driving in runs. Nolan Penoyer and Jimmy Griffin each scored twice.
Though the second game with Cortland was closer, ESM won that one, too, a 4-2 decision where it surrendered both Purple Tigers runs in the top of the first, only to take the lead for good with three runs in the bottom of the first.
Tanner Waldman blanked Cortland over his last six innings on the mound, only giving up five hits overall. Jenkins earned a pair of RBIs, with Williams and Gilkey getting one RBI apiece.
But when J-D took on Cortland Thursday, it lost, 6-4, unable to recover from the Purple Tigers scoring five runs in the bottom of the first off Red Ram starter Sean Hlywa.
Carter Kowalczyk pitched five strong innings of relief, and J-D did chip away, Giblin and Toscano each earning two hits as Goodson and Santos drove in runs and O’Bryan scored twice. Cortland held on, led by Jordan Shortsleeve’s pair of RBIs.
ESM, meanwhile, made it three wins in a row by rolling past Marcellus 10-2. A two-run first inning got the Spartans in front, but it was three-run rallies in the third and fifth innings that created most of the winning margin.
Between them, pitchers Zach Grevelding and Dan Garris only allowed three hits. At the plate, Nick Reppi got two RBIs as Gilkey and Grevelding each drove in two runs, with Williams, Sam Jenkins and Brendan Seburn also driving in runs.
The win streak got halted Friday in a narrow 7-6 defeat to Cicero-North Syracuse, unable to hold a 6-4 lead as the Northstars scored three times in the bottom of the seventh inning to pull it out. Gilkey, Williams and Ben Leib had two hits apiece, with Jenkins joining Gilkey and Williams in the RBI column.
Fayetteville-Manlius lost, 3-2, to Utica Proctor last Monday at Murnane Field, a game where it gained a 2-0 lead in the second inning on run-scoring hits from Sean O’Connor and Tom Coleman.
The Raiders countered with a run off Coleman in the third, but the Hornets were still up 2-1 when, in the bottom of the seventh, Proctor pulled it out, tying it and then loading the bases with two out before claiming the win on David Antone’s RBI single.
In Thursday’s game against Oswego, F-M rebounded in a big way, routing the Buccaneers 14-1 as it scored six times in the first two innings and added a five-run rally in the fourth.
Joe Gaeta and Seth Reisman each had three hits to pace the Hornets, with Coleman, Isaac Blanford and Christian Maloney getting two RBIs apiece. O’Connor, Zach Stuhler, Ari Spinoza and Max Parker joined Gaeta with one RBI apiece.
Then, on Friday, F-M defeated Fulton 9-6, building a 5-0 lead through three innings and then adding three more runs in the late innings after the Red Raiders cut the lead to 5-4.
John Egnaczyk gained three hits and two RBIs, with O’Connor, Reisman, Coleman, Parker, Mitch Seabury, Joe Gaeta and Sean Arthur each earning a pair of hits. Seabury scored a pair of runs.
