Long before April was done, the Baldwinsville baseball team would have a pretty clear idea of where it stood relative to the other main Section III Class AA contender, for it would have played against most of them.
That included West Genesee, whom the Bees visited on Monday afternoon. There, one bad inning proved costly in a 4-1 loss to the Wildcats.
Fresh off wins over Rome Free Academy and Utica Proctor the week before, B’ville got a jump here when Brett Charbonneau led off the game with a double. Charbonneau went to third on a bunt, then scored on Gabe Levanti’s sacrifice fly.
For a long while, that 1-0 lead held up. Mike St. John blanked WG in the first five innings, only allowing one hit and getting terrific defense behind him. That included a fly ball that slipped off the glove of a diving Shay Sargent -and got caught by Kyle Lattanzio.
At the same time, though, Eric Spencer was shutting the Bees down, and so it was still a one-run margin when, in the bottom of the sixth, it all fell apart.
Cam Kyle’s deep fly ball just escaped Sargent’s reach, leading to a double. Two batters later, Josh Salvagni’s RBI single tied it, 1-1, and with two on Spencer delivered a bloop single to center that brought home the go-ahead runs. Another run followed, and Spencer, who threw a three-hitter with seven strikeouts and no walks allowed, went 1-2-3 through the seventh.
