Taking a large step toward a possible appearance in the Section III Class B playoffs, the Cazenovia baseball team defended its home field Monday afternoon and put together an 11-9 victory over the Hannibal Warriors.
Ignoring Hannibal’s 10-5 mark, the Lakers seized a 6-1 lead through two innings, only to see the Warriors score seven times in the top of the third to jump ahead 8-6.
From there, pitcher Mike Blanchard settled down, as he and reliever Zack Golden limited the Warriors to one run the rest of the way.
That gave Cazenovia time to catch up — which it did with a pair of fourth-inning runs. They traded fifth-inning tallies, but with the score 9-9 in the bottom of the sixth, the Lakers pushed across two runs to go ahead for good.
Forest Blanchard produced four RBIs to lead both sides. Mike Blanchard doubled twice, driving in two runs, while Josten Smith, Carter Franz and Max Kellish each had one RBI.
In Wednesday’s game at Marcellus, the Lakers never recovered from a rough first inning and lost to the Mustangs 9-4.
Marcellus tagged Cazenovia starting pitcher Jeff Hopsicker for six runs in the bottom of the first, all it would need despite the Lakers scoring in four of the next six innings.
Smith and Ben Davis both would hit solo home runs as Cazenovia attempted to catch up. Golden also would drive in a run as the Lakers fell to 7-11.