When the Liverpool softball team welcomed Cicero-North Syracuse on Friday afternoon, it did so having blitzed every opponent since the Northstars stunned them 2-0 back on April 27.
With the team’s four seniors – Alicia Hansen, Dominique LaRose, Jordan Wheeler and Alexis Lamson – honored before the game, and prime motivation for payback against its biggest rival, the Warriors got it, but only after the Northstars scared them again in a 5-4 thriller.
Unlike that first meeting, Gabrielle Corasaniti pitched for C-NS instead of Meg Tully, but Liverpool could not put together a big inning against her, even as it took leads of 1-0 and 3-1 in the early innings, the latter on Peyton Bellrose’s two-run double.
In both instances, C-NS fought back to tie it, with single runs off Bellrose in the second, fourth and fifth innings, helped in small part by a Liverpool defense that committed several errors.
Yet it was a dropped infield pop-up in the bottom of the sixth that got Liverpool’s winning rally underway. With two on and one out, Katie Yudin singled home pinch-runner Jasmine Kelly, though Kelly hesitated around third base, stopped, and then ran home, just beating the throw.
Even more important, as it turned out, was Wheeler’s two-out single that plated the second run, for it gave the Warriors a 5-3 cushion that it needed. With two out in the top of the seventh, Jessica Callisto earned an RBI single to cut the margin to one, but with the tying run on first, Corasaniti grounded out to end the game.
In stark contrast to what happened against C-NS, The Warriors’ lead-up to the C-NS rematch included two routs over Auburn – a 17-2 victory on April 29 at home and, five days later, a 15-1 road romp over the Maroons.
Bellrose, fresh off her no-hitter at Fayetteville-Manlius on May 2 that included six hits and seven RBIs at the plate, almost matched that production here, twice belting home runs, adding a double and earning five RBIs while also holding Auburn to three hits and striking out nine.
Plenty of others joined in, too, including Wike with her four hits and two RBIs. Erika Sadowski also had four hits as Katie Yudin, Alicia Hansen, Dominique LaRose, Delanie Alberici and Gina Meyers notched two hits apiece as part of a 22-hit attack.
Not satisfied with one no-hitter, Liverpool did it again in last Tuesday’s 19-0 destruction of West Genesee, only this time Bellrose pitched for six innings before Yudin finished it off.
Liverpool accumulated 24 hits against the Wildcats and scored in every inning except the second. Wike and Hansen both managed five hits, with Wike driving in four runs and Hansen, who scored four times, matching Bellrose’s two-RBI total. Joelle Nesci hit a home run as she, along with Yudin and Jordan Wheeler, had three RBIs apiece. Erika Sadowski scored a pair of runs.
A second game against F-M in five days ended in a 15-0 shutout, but not a no-hitter. But Yudin still went the route, holding the Hornets to three hits and striking out eight.
Scoring in every inning but the second, the Warriors saw Hansen get a triple, two doubles and six RBIs. Bellrose added three hits, joining Yudin, Wike and LaRose getting two RBIs apiece, with Sadowski adding three ihts.
C-NS started its week with a chance at its own payback for a pair of early-season defeats, and got even with one of them when it held off Central Square 5-4 at the Gillette Road complex.
Having lost to the Redhawks for the first time in program history 6-5 on April 14 due to a seventh-inning Central Square comeback, the Northstars feared it happening again when, up 4-0 through two innings, it saw the visitors get to Corasaniti in the top of the third and tied it, 4-4, with Hannah Croteau’s three-run home run the big blow.
But a run in the bottom of the fourth got C-NS back in front, and Tully, relieving Corasaniti, made it stick with three shutout innings and five strikeouts, allowing just one hit. Callisto paced the Northstars with three RBIs as Lauren Floyd got three hits and scored twice. Brandi Feeney and Meghan Bocyck added two hits apiece.
C-NS then avenged its 4-1 defeat to Baldwinsville on April 16, going to the Bees’ home diamond and surviving an exciting seventh inning to prevail by a 4-2 margin.
For six innings, Tully and her B’ville counterpart, Keeanna Wolcik, went at it, neither pitcher surrendering a run. Though each side would get runners on base, Wolcik, who finished with 10 strikeouts, and Tully, who struck out six, kept working out of trouble.
The break came in the top of the seventh, when the Northstars got to Wolcik for four runs, two of them driven home on Lauren Floyd’s single. Paige Critella also had an RBI. The Bees tried to answer in the bottom of the seventh, scoring twice, but Tully was able to get the final out.
C-NS takes on Auburn this week. Liverpool, meanwhile, meets Baldwinsville and West Genesee, and both will close the regular season a week before Section III playoff pairings are announced May 20, three days later than originally scheduled due to the need of many teams across Central New York to make up games that were lost to weather back in April.
