A six-game win streak had the Baldwinsville baseball team feeling quite good, but as it entered its busiest – and toughest – stretch of the regular season, things got bumpy.
The win streak ended last Monday afternoon, when the Bees faced a Syracuse East side that had a 1-8 record, but still rose up and stunned B’ville 2-1.
For the most part, B’ville pitcher Ben Webb proved quite effective, going four innings and striking out four. But he gave up both of Syracuse West’s runs in the bottom of the second inning as Brian Nolan and Pat Burke drove them in.
Webb and reliever Mike Borek didn’t allow any more runs, but B’ville, trailing 2-0, got stymied as Nolan overcame seven Bees hits to constantly escape trouble.
Even with that, the Bees had a chance to catch up in the seventh, as Scott Blewett hit a solo home run to cut the deficit in half. But Nolan settled down and got the final outs.
Now B’ville had to turn around and, 24 hours later, host Cicero-North Syracuse, a team it lost to twice during last season’s state Class AA title run. Again, it proved close – but this time it was the Bees finishing on top, edging the Northstars by that same 2-1 margin.
Cody Kaestle, who had not yet won a varsity game, blanked C-NS until the top of the fifth, when Jake McArdell’s solo home run tied it, 1-1. To that point, the Bees’ only run had come in the third, when Pat Dubel doubled home Kevin Paul.
Kaestle and his C-NS counterpart, Jessie Farabee, maintained the 1-1 duel into the seventh. Pitching a complete game, Kaestle held the Northstars to four hits and no walks while striking out four.
Farabee, for his part, surrendered just six hits – but B’ville still got to him in the bottom of the seventh, and again Paul was in the middle of it. Blasi singled, and when Paul doubled into the gap, Blasi came all the way home to score the winning run.
On Wednesday night, B’ville paid a visit to the new complex at Onondaga Community College, where it faced Auburn – and again saw its bats come up dry in a 3-0 loss to the Maroons.
Most of that could be accredited to Auburn pitching ace Justin Valentino, who kept the Bees guessing all night, only allowing three hits (one each by Blewett, Dubiel and McAllister) and two walks while piling up eight strikeouts.
Billy Clifford pitched well, for the Bees, too, but bent enough to have the Maroons score single runs in the first and fifth innings, plus a run in the sixth as John Mercurio and Tom Scarfino saw relief stints. Patrick LaDouce doubled and scored two of the Maroons’ three runs.
Despite these losses, B’ville was still 10-3 going into Thursday’s game at Central Square – where it unleashed, by far, its biggest output of the season at the plate and pummeled the Red Hakws 23-4.
Remarkably, the Bees trailed, 3-2, before it scored three runs in the top of the fifth to move out in front. Then everything fell apart for Central Square as B’ville notched seven runs in the sixth and 11 runs in the seventh, finishing with 19 hits and helped by the Red Hawks’ six errors.
Nick Harper led the attack with five RBIs, scoring twice. Kevin Carson scored a team-high four runs and, with DeLola (who also pitched five innings and struck out five), earned two RBis apiece. Paul, Scarfino, Blewett, Blasi, Nick Borek and Charles McAllister each got one RBI.
In a more conventional game on Saturday afternoon, B’ville defeated Oswego 4-1, completing a regular-season sweep of the Buccaneers, but even that took some late drama.
A run in the third inning helped the Bees erase Oswego’s early 1-0 lead, but it stayed tied until the top of the seventh, when B’ville pushed across three runs against Bucs pitcher Chris Sullivan. Blewett earned a pair of RBIs, with Borek also driving in a run.
After all this, the Bees (12-3) still had five more regular-season games to deal with this week, including rematches with C-NS and Central Square, plus tough games against Liverpool, West Genesee and Syracuse East.
