Though it had lost 4-0 to Cicero-North Syracuse on May 3, the Liverpool softball team had to be pleased with the progress it made since it lost to those Northstars by a margin three times larger earlier in the season.

Yet anyone trying to stop the Northstars must find a way to hit Sydney O’Hara, who added to her long resume with a perfect game in Wednesday’s 5-0 victory at Auburn.

Twenty-one Maroons batters faced O’Hara, and none of them reached base, falling victim to 16 strikeouts as O’Hara, with her 64 mile-per-hour fastball, let just five balls get into play, each of them handled for an out.

All of the offense C-NS needed came in a four-run first inning. O’Hara would hit her fifth home run of the season, while Morgan Phillips earned a pair of RBIs. Lindsey Silfer added a double and RBI.

When O’Hara didn’t pitch – as was the case in Thursday’s game against Syracuse East – it nearly resulted in the season’s biggest shocker before C-NS held on for a 4-3 victory.

With an 0-12 record, East was not expected to provide any sort of challenge, even as the Northstars’ second pitcher, Kalet Lenart, got the start.

But East settled down after some errors in the first two innings led to all of C-NS’s runs. Pitcher Kelsea Jimenez blanked the Northstars from the third inning onward, allowing just four hits overall.

Lenart, meanwhile, had her own early struggles, East tagging her for a run in the first inning and two runs in the second, but started to put together her own shutout streak, overcoming seven East hits, four of them by Aliya Wade.

It all got settled in the bottom of the seventh. Trailing by that single run, East put the tying run on third and the winning run on second base, only to get called for obstruction for the game’s final out, C-NS all too glad to escape that scare.

What made this more amazing was that Liverpool beat East 12-0 earlier in the week. It was only a 1-0 game when Liverpool started to get to East pitcher Kristen Burr in the bottom of the fourth, scoring four times. Then it knocked around Burr and reliever Kelsea Jimenez for seven more runs in the next two innings to get the margin to double digits.

Alicia Hansen, Kaylah Quilty and Peyton Bellrose all took turns hitting home runs, Bellrose adding a double as she produced four RBIs.

K.C. TenBroeck drove in two runs as Lauren Cerrone, Jenna Bush, McKenzie Harris and Jaimie Baller had one RBI apiece. Between them, Bellrose and fellow pitcher Dana Nicoletti produced a three-hit shutout, earning 13 total strikeouts.

Two days later, Liverpool went to Camillus, quite eager to face the same West Genesee side it lost to in a 9-8, 13-inning epic on April 25. The rematch didn’t take as long as the Warriors overcame a slow start to beat the Wildcats 8-4.

Trailing 3-0, Liverpool, facing a different WG pitcher (Jenna Amidon) than the first meeting, tied it with three runs in the top of the third. It then took a 4-3 lead with a run in the fifth before getting four runs in the seventh inning that proved to be the difference.

Bellrose, who shared pitching duties with Nicoletti, had a double and two RBIs, as did Cerrone, while Jenna Bush also drove in two runs.