Somehow, Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse’s baseball teams beat the rain on Thursday for hard-earned victories.
In the Warriors’ case, it got in six innings against Fayetteville-Manlius, enough time for Alex Caruso and Pat Wright to supply some power in a 6-4 victory over the Hornets.
Caruso, with a runner on in the bottom of the first inning, crushed a Matt Godleski pitch over the right-field fence to put the Warriors in front 2-1.
After an exchange of runs in the second inning, Wright took his turn in the bottom of the third and sent Godleski’s offering on a line off the scoreboard in left field, making it 4-2.
F-M kept battling, though, and in the fifth put in a run and loaded the bases with two out. With the rain picking up, Caruso coaxed J.P. Quinn into a flyout that ended the threat.
Liverpool tacked on a run in the bottom half of the fifth, and Caruso followed with the last three outs. Overall, he struck out eight, and though F-M had eight hits, none of them were for extra bases.
Otherwise, weather caused havoc with Liverpool’s schedule, twice postponing a showdown with Baldwinsville and also wiping out a trip to West Genesee.
Cicero-North Syracuse, facing the combined Syracuse West squad, nearly saw a late lead slip away before the Northstars held on for a 3-2 victory.
Single runs in the first, fourth and seventh innings, driven in by Eric Hamilton, Mike Mento and Cory Burrows, appeared enough for ace Joe Pokrentowski, who accumulated 10 strikeouts.
But in the bottom of the seventh Pokrentowski tired, giving up two runs on Matt Thompson’s single and loading the bases with nobody out. Will Apps relieved Pokrentowski, and immediately got a grounder hit back to him, leading to a 1-2-3 double play. Another groundout ended the game.
