Perhaps the best thing for someone that has thrown away a comfortable lead, as the West Genesee baseball team did in Monday afternoon’s game against Cicero-North Syracuse at Gillette Field, is to just start over.
That’s what the Wildcats did, turning to Colin BeVard to deliver the big swing in the seventh inning that gave his side a 7-5 victory over the Northstars and improve to 6-1 on the season.
This battle of potential Class AA title contenders saw WG go in front 4-0, only to gradually give back that margin in the game’s middle and late stages.
By the time Jesse Farabee smashed a two-run, two-out double in the bottom of the sixth inning off relief pitcher Evan Richel, the game was a 5-5 tie.
Farabee took over pitching duties in the seventh after Ryan Nadeau had gone 4 2/3 innings of relief, caused by sophomore starter David Verrett’s early ouster.
But Will Randall greeted Farabee with a leadoff double, and then dashed to third base on a passed ball. With BeVard at the plate, the question was whether Farabee would pitch cautiously, or challenge BeVard to get a strikeout or, at worst, surrender a single run to prevent more damage.
The answer came when Farabee’s pitch hung in the strike zone and BeVard crushed it, nearly 400 feet beyond the right center-field wall. This two-run shot put WG back in front.
To stay there, though, the Wildcats needed relief pitcher Sean McConnell to get the final outs. He did, getting Anthony Spataro to take a called third strike that sealed the Wildcats’ victory.
WG had gained that 4-0 lead through scoring twice in each of the first two innings. BeVard, foreshadowing his late heroics, had a run-scoring single in the top of the first, as did Reichel, while no. 9 hitter Anthony Carrodegaus and Gauthier used hits of their own in the second inning to double the lead.
Meanwhile, pitcher Seamus Barry was effective through most of his five-inning mound stint. WG was efficient at the plate, too, managing a run in the fourth despite facing just five pitches in five at-bats, which led to a single, sacrifice bunt, foul popout, RBI single (by Randall) and groundout.
Still, Barry tired in the fifth, C-NS cutting the deficit to 5-3 on Steven Theetge’s RBI double, and would tie things up before BeVard and McConnell made sure the Wildcats left Gillette on a happy note.
