So now the next chapter for the Liverpool baseball team is underway – where, at the least, the Warriors hope to successfully defend its Section III Class AA championship.
Many top players are back for head coach Fred Terzini’s Warriors. Alex Caruso, Tyler Bliss, Pat Wright and Nick Pilotti are among the familiar names.
For the 2012 season, the Warriors chose not to open in the local area. Rather, it had scrimmages before making the annual trip to Myrtle Beach, S.C., where it played against top-level national competition during the school break.
Once it got back home, Liverpool rested before finally playing its home opener Tuesday, against Central Square, where the combination of big bats and Ryan Contegni’s superb pitching led to a 15-0 shutout of the Red Hawks.
The fun really started in the bottom of the third inning. Liverpool, ahead 1-0, scored five times in that frame and followed that up with a nine-run outburst in the sixth inning that broke the game open.
Contegni didn’t need much help, though. He held Central Square to five hits and amassed a career-best 14 strikeouts, going the route to spare the bullpen any extra work.
Josh Mason’s lone hit, a triple, cleared the bases and led to three RBIs. Pilotti was two-for-three with a two runs scored and a pair of RBIs, while Austin Bush and Cameron Pieklik each drove in two runs. Wright, Andrew VanMarter and Austin Bush had one RBI apiece as Contegni and Dominick Pirro each scored a pair of runs.
