Before they could square off one more time in the regular season early this week, the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool softball teams had plenty of other games to get through.
By far, the most important task for C-NS was hosting last Sunday’s “Strike Out Cancer” event to raise money for breast cancer research, an events the players ran themselves as part of the community service classroom project.
C-NS, West Genesee, Jamesville-DeWitt and Oneida each played two games against top opponents from across the state who came back after the original tournament on April 28 was rained out.
J-D won twice, while Oneidaand WG split their two games, while C-NS got a sweep, beating Rochester Mercy (Section V) and Guilderland (Section II) by equal 5-1 margins.
Against Mercy, Giana Wameling got her turn to pitch and was superb, holding the Saints to four hits. The Northstars got all it needed from a three-run second inning, adding two runs in the fifth as Ally Ciafratta got a pair of RBIs, with Brandi Feeney doubling in a run and Mackenzie White also getting an RBI.
The Guilderland game included all of C-NS’s runs in the first inning, with Ciafratta, Julianna Vassallo and Brooke Nicolaos getting RBIs prior to Jenna Imbesi’s two-run single. Lindsey Richards did the rest, striking out six and limiting Guilderland to seven hits.
All of this made last Monday’s 6-5, eight-inning defeat to West Genesee a bit easier for C-NS to take, even though it squandered a tremendous Northstars comeback.
Down 4-0 through two innings, C-NS stayed patient until it struck for a run in the fifth and four runs in the sixth inning to take a 5-4 lead, Nicolaos doing most of the damage thanks to a home run, double and four RBIs.
Meanwhile, Richards, in a long relief stint after Ari Corasaniti’s early departure, was three outs from victory until WG tied it, 5-5, in the bottom of the seventh, and prevailed an inning later when Mya Case doubled, went to third and raced home on a wild pitch.
Liverpool would return to action last Monday and rip past Fayetteville-Manlius 18-2, and then get its own late-game drama with West Genesee on Wednesday, only the Warriors proved successful as it edged the Wildcats 3-2.
They traded first-inning runs, and then Liverpool inched in front 2-1 in the fifth before WG tied it again an inning later on VanHorn’s solo home run.
Yet the Wildcats could not pull in front and, in the bottom of the seventh, Ashley Teixeira’s single brought home the decisive run. It was Teixeira’s second hit of the day as Giana LaValle got three hits, with Mikayla Sweeting scoring twice. Jenna Wike struck out five.
Meanwhile, C-NS was bashing Baldwinsville 17-2, answering Madelyn Shuler’s two-run home run in the top of the first with five runs in the bottom of the first and a lot more in the third, fifth and sixth innings to end it early.
Vassallo led the way with a home run, double, two walks and five RBIs. Ciafratta’s pair of doubles drove in four runs as Vassallo, Feeney, Giana Wameling and Victoria Dunn scored three runs apiece, Wameling going four-for-four at the plate.
Liverpool took its own turn against B’ville Friday, and it was quite a duel between Wike and Kayla Young until the bottom of the seventh when Nash’s single produced the winning run in yet another late-game triumph by the Warriors, this one a 1-0 decision.
All that B’ville could manage against Wike was three hits, two of them by Claire McAllister as Wike got eight strikeouts.
Meanwhile, Wike and Teixeira both notched three hits at the plate that produced zero runs. But in the bottom of the seventh, Wike singled a fourth time, and raced home with the winning run when Alicia Nash drove her home, the fourth time this season Liverpool won a home game in the seventh inning or later.
C-NS, meanwhile, was sweeping a doubleheader against Fayettteville-Manlius, winning by scores of 10-1 and 15-5 to give itself lots of momentum as it came back to Gillette to deal with Liverpool again.
