Nine Liverpool baseball players got to enjoy the full honors accorded to all those on Senior Day – and one of them, Mike Parsons, would really make it special.
Mike Parsons went from pre-game honors to prime heroics during Friday’s battle with Fayetteville-Manlius, hitting two home runs and pitching two perfect innings of relief to lead the Warriors past the Hornets 6-4.
The win secured for Liverpool the top seed for the Section III Class A playoffs that get underway next week. The Warriors entered this game atop the CNY Counties League National division, while F-M had already secured the American division crown and had, at worst, a no. 2 seed in place.
Given the game’s meaning, it was no surprise that another senior standout, Andrew Schreyack, took to the mound in his first start since the 4-3 win over rival Cicero-North Syracuse on May 9. Immediately, Schreyack found trouble when, on back-to-back pitches, F-M’s Pat McClure and Mike Monashefsky smacked home runs over the left-field fence, McClure’s a two-run shot.
So the Warriors trailed 3-0 when Parsons first came to the plate against Hornets left-hander Zach Tucker in the bottom of the first. Parsons promptly deposited a fastball over the same fence as the previous F-M blows, and the Warriors were on the board.
Schreyack then struck from the left side of the plate in the bottom of the second. Following Pat Wright’s leadoff single, Schreyack, on a 3-2 pitch, skied a deep drive that fought the win and got over the right-field wall, tying the game at 3-3.
F-M inched in front again in the third, Monashevsky singling home Jimmy Novakowski. But Parsons made sure that 4-3 deficit didn’t last long when, in the bottom of the third, he lined a Tucker offering just over the left-field wall for his second home run of the afternoon. Fired up by that, Shawn Peake doubled, and Wright singled him home to give Liverpool a 5-4 lead.
In the fourth, two singles and a groundout led to Alex Caruso’s sacrifice fly that brought home an insurance run. Even with a two-run lead, though, Liverpool did not feel safe enough so, in the sixth, Schreyack left the mound – and Parsons took over.
All Parsons did in the sixth was strike out Monashefsky, Louis Testone and Bryan Hill in order. And in the seventh, F-M again went down in order, six in a row retired by Parsons to put away the win.
Though the top seed was wrapped up, Liverpool did not stop there, returning to the field a day later and, in a game delayed several times during the week due to rain, knocked off Baldwinsville 6-2 to end the regular season with a 17-1 mark.
Having already beaten the Bees 13-7 back on May 5 at Alliance Bank Stadium, the Warriors broke a 1-1 tie in the rematch by scoring three times in the top of the third inning. Two more runs followed in the sixth.
Wright and Corbin Gapski both earned two RBIs, with Caruso also driving in a run. Nick Pilotti scored twice and added a pair of hits as Caruso, going the whole way on the mound, held B’ville to two hits and four walks.
Sure enough, Liverpool had the top seed when the AA playoff brackets came out. It now awaited a quarterfinal on Thursday against the winner of Tuesday’s game between no. 8 seed Oswego and no. 9 seed Rome Free Academy. The semifinals are Saturday and the final is June 1 at Alliance Bank Stadium.
