If the Fayetteville-Manlius baseball team wanted to choose an ideal scenario to start its 2010 campaign, it might have picked exactly what took place on a cold, blustery Friday afternoon against Utica Proctor.
The Hornets began strong, struggled in the middle, then made a strong comeback to pull out a 6-5 victory over the Raidres, a perennial Class AA title contender.
As for F-M, it comes off a 2009 season where, under a new coaching staff, it played its way to the AA quarterfinals before falling to eventual champion Cicero-North Syracuse.
In meeting Proctor, the Hornets avoided having to face Raiders pitching ace Steve Sarcone. It celebrated by putting up three runs in the bottom of the first inning to zoom out in front.
Proctor absorbed this, then answered with three runs in the top of the third to tie it, plus a two-run fifth that gave the visitors a 5-3 lead. Sarcone and Ryan Allesandro each had two RBIs to lead Proctor’s effort.
In the bottom of the sixth, F-M pulled back even with a two-run outburst of its own. Then, in the bottom of the seventh, it loaded the bases before Brooks Wiegl’s single allowed the winning run to race home.
Zach Tucker, pitching in relief of Jeremy Mapstone, got the win. Louis Testone tripled and drove in two runs. F-M gets back-to-back road games at Auburn and Baldwinsville early this week before hosting Rome Free Academy on Thursday.