Baldwinsville’s baseball team now knows that the path to the Section III Class AA championship will have to run straight through Liverpool.
The no. 2 seed Bees and no. 3 seed Warriors square off Saturday in the AA semifinals at 1 p.m., with the winner advancing to the finals at Alliance Bank Stadium against Watertown or Fayetteville-Manlius.
These two sides got to the semifinals in completely opposite manners. Liverpool had to rally from a 5-0 deficit and go to eight innings to get rid of no. 7 seed Rome Free Academy 7-6 in Thursday’s AA quarterfinals.
Just a few miles away, B’ville had no need for a comeback – or anything close to tension – as it toyed with no. 11 seed Syracuse West in a 21-0 quarterfinal romp.
Without question, the Bees were glad that Syracuse West had knocked out perennial power Cicero-North Syracuse in Tuesday’s opening round in a 4-1 decision, both because of the Northstars’ recent history of success and because West had to use its pitching ace, Ryan O’Neill, to prevail.
Up against West’s Nate Boughton, B’ville struck for four runs in the first inning and three runs in the second, but didn’t stop there.
In both the fourth and fifth innings, the Bees batted around, earning seven runs in each frame, making it easy for Scott Blewett, who pitched five innings and earned eight strikeouts, holding West to just two hits.
Jake Norton led the Bees’ assault with a single, double and career-best five RBIs. Connor Martin went two-for-three, scoring three times and earning three RBIs, while Gabe Levanti, Zach Leo and Jordan Hughes each drove in two runs.
Brett Charbonneau singled, walked twice and scored a team-best four runs as Josh Savacool, Jimmy Schmidt and Josh Demoski each scored twice.
