With a Section III Class B championship that it badly wants to reclaim, the Westhill baseball team got started on another spring of high expectations.
At the heart of those expectations is pitching ace Sam Walsh, who proved quite impressive in Wednesday afternoon’s season opener against Marcellus, the right-hander throwing six innings and only allowing one hit in a 5-2 victory over the Mustangs.
The field at Westhill dried quickly once the snows melted, so the Warriors and Marcellus were able to start far earlier than many of their high school contemporaries, even if they only had minimal practice time outdoors before the opener.
Adding to the challenge for Westhill was the fact that three starters – Jeff Lobello, Mike Burton and Ryan Roland – were less than two weeks removed from the conclusion of a Class B state and Federation championship basketball season.
Still, the baseball Warriors are motivated for the spring, in large part due to seeing its sectional crown taken by Clinton last May, and watching those other Warriors advance all the way to the state finals in Binghamton, a place where Westhill claimed state titles in 2009 and 2010.
Walsh keys all of those expectations, and he had his early struggles against Marcellus, who won the sectional Class B title in 2011. In the top of the first inning, he surrendered two walks and a run-scoring single by Mike Hastings, loading the bases with one out before striking out the side.
From there, Walsh was never in serious danger, allowing just one more walk and no other hits in his remaining five innings of work and constantly punching out Mustang hitters, finishing with 13 strikeouts.
Right-hander Colin Smith, pitching for Marcellus, kept the Warriors off the board early in part due to defense, as the Mustangs picked off two runners in the bottom of the first.
But with two out in the third, Bobby Antonnacci coaxed a walk and, taking off with the pitch, raced all the way home on Burton’s bloop single to tie it, 1-1.
An inning later, Chris Coates’ RBI single put Westhill in front, and a wild pitch brought home another run to make it 3-1. Coates returned in the sixth to single home two more runs off Mustang reliever Bryan Carroll.
Brian O’Hara, pitching the Westhill seventh in relief of Walsh, surrendered a double to Hastings, who scored on a stolen base and groundout, but managed to get the final three outs.
