Some amount of urgency surrounded the Cicero-North Syracuse baseball team’s encounter with Fayetteville-Manlius last Thursday at the Gillette Road complex.
And the Northstars responded to that urgency, jumping all over the Hornets’ pitching ace, Zach Tucker, and roaring to a 12-4 victory.
In the bottom of the second inning, C-NS trailed 2-0, and that appeared troubling since Tucker sported a 2-0 record and had already no-hit Utica Proctor earlier this month.
But in that frame, the Northstars used its speed and skill to put together a five-run rally, seizing the lead for good. Another run followed in the third, plus two in the fifth before a four-run sixth inning put F-M away.
Owen Dziados had three of C-NS’s 11 hits, contributing a walk, stolen base and two RBIs. Joe Deluca added two hits, two runs scored and two RBIs, while Mike Mento also scored twice. Mento, Eric Hamilton, Vince Mallaro and Paul Ludden each had one RBI.
All this offered ample support to senior left-hander Kyano Cummings, who battled his way through a complete game where he allowed nine hits and three walks, but minimized F-M’s attempts to rally and struck out eight.
Having only gone 2-2 in four games in Myrtle Beach during the April school break, the Northstars returned to league action last Monday at West Genesee and lost again, a 4-3 decision.
The Wildcats jumped on C-NS ace Joe Pokrentowski for three runs in the bottom of the first inning. Though Pokrentowski settled down and the Northstars tied it, 3-3, by the top of the fifth, WG notched a single run in the bottom of that frame that proved decisive.
At the plate, C-NS got just four hits off Wildcat pitcher John Fredette, one each from Joe Bodnar, Eric Hamilton, Brandon Kapcinski and Paul Vinciguerra, as Kapcinski and Vinciguerra got credit for RBIs.
A game scheduled for last Saturday against Binghamton Seton Catholic rained out. The Northstars hope to play it this Saturday, but that, like other games this week against Baldwinsville and Syracuse West, were threatened by inclement weather.
