When the last week of the regular season began, the Fayetteville-Manlius baseball team had to win three games to make it to the Section III Class AA playoffs. And though it had to wait until the last moment, the Hornets managed to pull it off.
To start with, F-M needed to beat South Jefferson last Monday – and did so, handling the Spartans 8-1. Scoring runs in each inning except the first and fourth, the Hornets accumulated 14 hits, four of them from Jake Wittig, who also scored twice and earned a pair of RBIs.
Mitch Hoalcraft doubled, tripled and drove in two runs, with Josh Loeffler adding a pair of RBIs. Zach Bernstein got two hits.
Three days later, the Hornets lost, 7-2, to Cicero-North Syracuse, and what made it more frustrating was that F-M, thanks to single runs in the third and fourth innings, led, 2-1, only to see the Northstars erupt for six runs in the top of the seventh to snatch away the win.
That took away any cushion for the Hornets, who now faced must-win situations for its two remaining games against Elmira and Westhill.
F-M beat Elmira 4-2 on Friday by scoring twice in the third inning to move in front and adding single runs in the fourth and seventh innings to account for the eventual winning margin. Four pitchers – Loeffler, Taylor Smach, Anthony Nucerino and Jared Shaw – combined on a five-hitter. Nucerino and Hoalcraft had two hits apiece at the plate, with Nucerino driving in a pair of runs.
So it all rode on Saturday’s battle with Westhill, who was riding a 14-game win streak. But this didn’t matter to the fired-up Hornets, who knocked off the Warriors 8-2 to secure that sectional playoff berth behind solid pitching from Tom Flynn and Pete Miller.
A three-run first inning got F-M moving, and then it tacked on single runs in the third and fifth innings before another three-run outburst in the sixth settled matters. Wittig, who had three hits, and Sean Putnam each had two RBIs, with Smach, Bernstein and Nate Kelder getting one RBI apiece. Nucerino and Colin Sommers each got a pair of hits.
Bishop Grimes was already in the sectional Class B tournament, but clinched a winning record for 2015 with last Monday’s 9-2 victory over Jordan-Elbridge before pulling out a 5-4, nine-inning victory over Cazenovia on Thursday afternoon.
Three first-inning runs did not hold up for Grimes, who saw Cazenovia go in front, 4-3, by the fifth. But the Cobras pulled back even with a run in the bottom of the fifth.
With Trevor Pokines’ pitching (he struck out 10 in eight innings of work), kept it 4-4 until the ninth, when Jack Rotondo pitched an inning of scoreless relief and Grimes produced the winning run. Adam Dominic and Jim Parra each had two hits and two RBIs to lead the Cobras’ attack, while Pokines added two hits and Chris Mancuso scored twice.
More drama followed on Friday, with Grimes needing eight innings to get past Altmar-Parish-Williamstown 7-6.
The Cobras trailed the Rebels 6-5 going into the bottom of the seventh, but tied it when Dominic singled, stole second and scored on a throwing error. Grimes executed a double play in the top of the eighth off a failed squeeze play, and then, in the bottom of the eighth, Pokines’ single scored Rotondo with the winning run.
