Given that the Cazenovia baseball program had never won a league or Section III title prior to this week, what was a few days’ more waiting?
That was what the Lakers had to do – wait – before polishing off Sherburne-Earlville 10-1 Thursday night at Alliance Bank Stadium to earn the Class B-2 championship.
“It’s still indescribable,” said 10-year head coach Jay Steinhorst. “We’ve been a middle-of-the-pack team for many years, and this year we started 2-6. But we got hot at the right time.”
Indeed, throughout the month of May Cazenovia had clicked, a hot streak that carried over into the B-2 playoffs as it went on the road and took out Ilion (7-2) and top seed Clinton (11-3) on the way to the final against Sherburne-Earlville, the no. 2 seed.
That game began way back on Monday night, at Rome’s DeLutis Field. But with the Lakers up 1-0 in the top of the second inning, lightning in the area sent the teams off the field, not to return.
Originally, the plan was to finish the game Tuesday at Alliance Bank Stadium, but heavy rains meant that had to be pushed back, too, until Thursday, when things finally cleared up.
The delay didn’t bother the Lakers one bit. It touched S-E for runs in each of the first six innings (five of them after play resumed) to build a 10-0 lead before the Marauders tacked on a meaningless run in the bottom of the sixth.
Darian Smith’s singles drove home runs in the second and fourth innings. In between, Ben Langey’s triple in the top of the third set up Brian Gara’s sacrifice fly.
And it broke open in the fifth, when Chad Warren’s two-run double and another sacrifice fly, this one from Billy Bigsby, made it 7-0. Jack Malmsheimer’s two-RBI single highlighted a three-run sixth.
Meanwhile, left-hander Mark Dewan, who started the game back on Monday, returned and went 5 2/3 innings, only allowing that single run and two hits to the Marauders.
Chris Matteson finished off the sixth (with help from Smith, who made two great defensive plays at second base), and Malmsheimer struck out the side in the bottom of the seventh to close it out.
Cazenovia was supposed to turn around Friday afternoon and face B-1 champion Westhill for the overall sectional title and a first-ever berth in the state tournament, but it got postponed by rain.
Read about the Lakers’ June 2 game against the Westhill Warriors here: Baseball Lakers fall to Westhill in Class B Final
