Three times in as many days, the Skaneateles baseball team would take the field, determined to gain a fair amount of momentum and lock up a Section III playoff berth, too.
At the end of this sequence, the Lakers faced Homer on Saturday, making up a game rained out last Tuesday afternoon. Despite making a stirring mid-game comeback, Skaneateles could not pull off the surprise, falling to the Trojans 4-3.
Homer, straight off a 1-0 win over Westhill on Thursday, jumped to a 3-0 lead on Skaneateles pitcher Ryan Cunningham. But the Lakers tied it, 3-3, with two runs in the third and another run in the fourth as Cunningham, Connor Herr and Austin Amory scored those runs.
In the bottom of the fifth, the Trojans poked across the go-ahead run. Brandon Barron, relieving Cunningham, blanked Homer the rest of the way, but Skaneateles could not pull back even against reliever Brent Quinlan, who struck out six in 3 2/3 innings after he replaced Kevin McNeil.
Prior to this, Skaneateles had back-to-back games against Hannibal. In the first game on Thursday at Frank O’Neill Field, the Lakers led from start to finish and hammered the Warriors 8-1.
A pair of first-inning runs set the tone, and Skaneateles kept itself in front behind the strong pitching of Ryan Prochna as the Cortland State-bound senior gave up just three hits and amassed 12 strikeouts against the Hannibal lineup.
At the plate, Skaneateles peaked with a four-run third inning. Sepp Martin, in particular, had a good day, getting three hits and finishing with four RBIs as Brandon Barron, Connor Herr and Ryan Sherman each drove in one run. Austin Amory added a pair of hits as Herr scored twice.
The rematch, on Friday at Hannibal, went in a different direction as some early struggles on the mound led to a 5-3 defeat.
Staked to an early 1-0 lead, Herr could not hold it, the Warriors getting to him for two runs in the second and three more runs in the third. Cunnignham and Martin would earn RBIs as the Lakers notched single runs in the third and fifth, but would get no closer.
Skaneateles stood at 5-10 after the loss to Homer and still faced games against Westhill and Solvay in the last week of the regular season.
