Not until the penultimate day of April did the West Genesee baseball team take its first blemish in the 2019 season, but the second quickly followed.
The first of these defeats took place on the big field at NBT Bank Stadium, where in last Monday night’s Strike Out Lou Gehrig’s Disease Classic the Wildcats could not get itself going in a 9-1 defeat to Liverpool.
This same Warriors team had also handed Baldwinsville its first defeat on April 25 in a 5-4, eight-inning battle, but here Liverpool went out in front 3-0 by the end of the second inning.
Ryan Paige lasted four innings, but after he left the Warriors got away with a four-run sixth inning as Adam Marsh (three RBIs), Kobe Stenson and Mike DeStefano (two RBIs apiece) led Liverpool’s push.
WG did not get on the board until the bottom of the sixth, when Tyler Kensey doubled home Chris Bonacci, but that was all Warriors pitcher Luke Harder would surrender as he held the Wildcats to two hits, striking out five.
All of this was fairly simple to take, but when WG faced Liverpool again a day later in the second game of the series, the Wildcats again lost, this time by a 5-3 margin.
An early exchange of runs had WG scoring once in the first inning and twice in the second as Bonacci and Luis Suarez drove in runs, yet Liverpool answered by converting twice in both innings off Wildcats pitcher Jack Gordon.
From there, the pitching took over on both ends, with Gordon only surrendering a fourth-inning run before Sam Gallager relieved him, but the Warriors’ Nyhmin Green blanked the Wildcats over his last four innings before Matt Pare got the save.
Only Bonacci had two hits on WG’s side. By contrast, Harder had three of Liverpool’s nine hits, driving in a run as Sam Sgroi added two hits and Marsh got a pair of RBIs.
Wednesday was supposed to bring the conclusion of the 2-2 game with Cicero-North Syracuse at the Gillette Road complex halted by rain a week earlier.
Yet more wet weather meant another postponement, to go with the third game against Liverpool getting moved to this Wednesday amid the B’ville series.
And in the meantime, WG met Rome Free Academy on Saturday and dropped its third straight game, a 1-0 decision where, for five innings, Paige dueled with the Black Knights’ Justin Swavely, neither ace allowing a run.
Only in the bottom of the sixth did RFA get to Paige and reliever Sam Gallager, Riley Brawdy scoring the run as, overall, Swavely held the Wildcats to three hits and struck out seven.
Back on Monday at NBT Bank Stadium, Jordan-Elbridge nearly erased a 9-0 deficit against Bishop Grimes, mostly on the basis of a seven-run rally in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Ultimately, the Eagles lost, 11-8, to the Cobras, but not before a big scare where Zach Fabrize, Sean Dristle and Jordan Osborn each got two hits, Fabrize scoring twice as he and Dristle, along with Carson Ashby and Geoff Lippa, got one RBI apiece.
Then J-E lost 5-2 to Mexico a day later. Keegan Ferris pitched for the Eagles as the Tigers got to him for two runs in both the first and fourth innings, Ryan Mosher getting three RBIs. Osborn and Ferris drove in J-E’s runs, but the team had just five hits overall.
