A close first meeting, and the way both sides had performed since then, brought a whole lot of meaning to Monday’s baseball showdown between Westhill and Solvay. In the week leading up to that game, both teams continued to pile up victories.
Westhill wasted little time getting on the board in last Monday’s 11-4 victory over Altmar-Parish-Williamstown, scoring twice in the first inning and four times in the second, the rally capped by Bobby Antonacci’s two-run triple.
All told, Antonacci had four RBIs, with Jeff Lobello and Ryan Roland each getting two hits and scoring two runs. Alex Kiley also had two hits as Lobello pitched four innings to earn the win, with relief help from Mike Burton and Sam Walsh.
Cazenovia paid a visit on Thursday afternoon, but couldn’t do much against a Warriors attack that took advantage of every Lakers mistake and won by a comfortable 11-1 margin.
In each of the first two innings, Cazenovia stranded runners on third, and Westhill made the Lakers pay with a five-run outburst in the second, keyed by two-run doubles from Roland and Walsh.
The lead grew to 8-0 before Cazenovia got on the board for the only time in the sixth inning. Starting pitcher Corey DeMauro left in the fourth, but Antonacci and John Ansona handled duties the rest of the way as Lobello, Chris Coates and Brad Canavan each would add an RBI.
Westhill also added a game Friday against Dryden (Section IV), and it turned out to be one with a milestone. The Warriors’ 17-1 victory, which included a home run by Antonacci, gave head coach Bob Weismore 300 wins for his career.
Solvay put its win streak on the line last Monday at Skaneateles, and nearly got toppled, having to go nine innings to push past the Lakers 8-7.
Three different times in regulation, the Bearcats trailed by a run, but each time came back to pull even, doing so once more in the sixth to create a 5-5 tie.
It stayed that way until the top of the ninth, when Solvay chased Skaneateles starter John Teixeira and then got three runs off his relief replacements, Kyler Viggiano and Max Goldman.
Sammy Kippen had taken over in the fourth inning after stints from Brandon Franklin and John Rutkowski, and he nearly blew that 8-5 lead in the bottom of the ninth, the Lakers scoring twice before Kippen was able to record the final out.
At the plate, Kippen notched three hits, including a double, and scored twice. Jeff Honsinger hit a home run and got two RBIs, with Jake Dippold also driving in a pair of runs. Mike Yiazzo, Mike Cimino and Josh Chrysler had one RBI apiece.
In a non-league game Tuesday afternoon, Solvay turned back East Syracuse Minoa 7-4, mainly by scoring six runs in the first two innings. Kippen scored three of those runs, adding two hits as Dippold earned two RBIs and Cimino also drove in a run. Dippold also pitched 5 1/3 innings to earn the win, striking out six before Nick Vona went the rest of the way in relief.
After all this, the Bearcats got a breather on Wednesday, courtesy of the pitching of Brett Peterson, who was close to unhittable in an 8-0 shutout over the Phoenix Firebirds.
Allowing just three hits and one walk, Peterson struck out eight in his complete-game effort. Phoenix counterpart Chase Cavanaugh kept it close until the fifth, when the Bearcats scored three runs and tacked on four runs in the sixth.
Blake Bagozzi broke out in this game, earning two doubles and a triple, scoring twice and getting four RBIs. Cimino and Yiazzo also scored two runs as Chrysler joined Cimino in the RBI column.
Right after Westhill played Cazenovia, Solvay took on the Lakers Friday night at Onondaga Community College and won, too, by a 15-4 margin, overcoming the Lakers’ four-run first inning with an offense that tore through four Cazenovia pitchers during a 12-run fourth inning that decided matters.
Honsinger led that charge with a single, double, triple and three RBIs. Yaizzo and Kippen also drove in three runs, while Rutkowski, Franklin, Cimino and Chrysler had one RBI apiece. Following his rough first inning, Rutkowski blanked Cazenovia in his next five frames, piling up six strikeouts, before Jake Kyanka worked the final inning.
