Well on its way to what looked like an easy victory over a neighbor and rival, the Baldwinsville baseball team got blindsided.
Liverpool, trailing by nine runs in the fourth inning of last Monday’s game, made up that entire deficit in just two innings, going on to stun the Bees in a 12-10 decision.
It was 0-0 when, in the top of the third inning, B’ville (who beat the Warriors 8-1 just 10 days earlier, on May 3) broke out for six runs off Liverpool starter Nick Claver. Andrew Dominic took over, but he gave up three runs in the fourth, and the Warriors trailed, 9-0, the game looking out of reach.
Kevin Carson, with two doubles and three RBIs, sparked B’ville’s early push. Nick Mirizio and Nick Borek each got two hits and two RBIs. Gage Blasi and Brett DeLola also drove in runs.
It was Don Pauldine providing the spark for the Warriors in the bottom of the fourth, catching a Kody Caestle pitch and crushing it well over the fence for a three-run home run. Fired up by that, the Warriors added four more runs in that inning to knock out Castle and make it 9-7.
And despite a B’ville run that made it 10-7 in the top of the fifth, Liverpool struck again in the bottom of the fifth off relievers John Mercurio and Billy Clifford.
Two more runs made it 10-9. Fittingly, Pauldine, who started the outburst, singled home the tying and go-ahead runs that put Liverpool in front 11-10, and the red-hot Warriors tacked on an insurance run, too.
Where once it stared at a one-sided defeat, now the Warriors had to protect a two-run lead. Spencer Powers, who had gone three-for-three at the plate, did so, working two innings in relief before Luke Gilbert pitched a scoreless seventh to earn the save.
After a day to absorb the loss, B’ville would get a chance to avenge an April 15 defeat to West Genesee on Wednesday afternoon, but instead found itself shut down by the same pitcher, Bailey Gauthier, it struggled with before and lost, 4-0, to the Wildcats.
Just as when it beat B’ville 4-1 back on April 11, the Wildcats had Gauthier on the mound, but this time opposed by left-hander Brett DeLola – and WG would get to DeLola early.
With two out in the top of the first, Collin BeVard tripled, and he raced home on Matt VanAllen’s single. Then, in the second, the Wildcats put two runners in scoring position, and Nate Guinta brought them home with a clutch single.
A throwing error led to another WG run in the third, but the four-run margin was far more than Gauthier, who had thrown 4 2/3 innings and combined with Seamus Barry on a one-hitter in that first meeting with B’ville, would need.
By far, Gauthier’s biggest stress came in the bottom of the third, when B’ville loaded the bases with one out on two singles and a walk. Continuing to throw strikes, Gauthier got Scott Blewett to fly out, too shallow to score a run, and Kevin Carson to ground out.
As the game wore on, Gauthier seemed to get stronger. All of the Bees’ four hits came in the first four innings, and Gauthier retired the last 10 batters he faced, finishing it off with his 10th strikeout of the afternoon.
Having lost in two vastly different manners, B’ville carried some urgency into Thursday night’s game against Cicero-North Syracuse, whom it beat 3-2 just nine days earlier.
Now, at Gillette Field, the Bees would find itself trailing again – but flirting with a third straight defeat, it rescued matters and pulled out a 6-4 victory over the Northstars to move to 13-5 on the season.
The two sides went back and forth all game long, B’ville trailing 2-1 at one point, and then going in front before C-NS pulled back even, 3-3.
That set up the top of the seventh, when the Bees put together a timely three-run rally, including a sacrifice fly by John Mercurio, finally back in the lineup after a broken nose suffered during the Bees’ spring-break trip to the Disney Wide World of Sports complex in Florida, plus run-scoring hits from Blewett and Pat Dubiel.
Mercurio also pitched, having taken over in the fifth for Borek, and went the final 2 2/3 innings, holding the Northstars to one hit and giving the other pitcher some much-needed rest.
This long, winding week concluded Saturday with festivities to honor the B’ville baseball seniors – and more importantly, a victory, as the Bees knocked off Central Square 7-4 to improve its overall regular-season record to 12-5.
After a trio of first-inning runs, B’ville gave up that lead by the third, only to score three times in the bottom of the third to move ahead for good. Carson doubled and drove in two runs, while Blewett, DeLola, Borek and David Marsell had one RBI apiece.
