As it turned out, the stay of the Cazenovia baseball team in the Section III Class B playoffs was a short one.
The Lakers squeezed into the 18-team sectional field, but because it had the no. 17 seed, it had to go on the road and beat no. 16 seed Clinton in the May 23 opening round to earn a shot at top seed Holland Patent a day later.
And it was the Warriors taking over early with two big outbursts at the plate in the first two innings on the way to eliminating Cazenovia in an 18-4 decision.
Even though the Lakers claimed a brief lead with a run in the top of the first inning, Clinton countered with seven runs in the bottom of the first, and then the same thing happened in the second inning.
All of this left Cazenovia trailing 14-2, and the game was already out of reach, the Lakers only managing four hits as Tanner Deveans and Alex Mancuso each had two hits and three RBIs to pace the Warriors.
Patrick Linck finished with two of those four Lakers hits, earning an RBI. Dan Hammond also drove in a run as Tripp Clarke got a hit.
Clinton didn’t stop there, either, going on to shock Holland Patent 5-3 a day later and reaching Wednesday’s quarterfinals against Solvay, where the Warriors blew a six-run seventh-inning lead and lost 10-9 to the Bearcats.
