For a long time, Baldwinsville’s softball team could only look on as its neighbors from Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse piled up one Section III championship after another, wondering if it would ever get its turn at the big prize.
Suddenly, the chance presented itself last week, and the Bees, despite the no. 7 seed in a nine-team sectional bracket and a 9-10 regular-season mark, made a charge, but fell one victory short of reaching the title game.
The key to it all was the starting point. B’ville visited no. 2 seed Central Square in last Tuesday’s Class AA quarterfinal, a team with which it split two regular-season meetings, falling 6-1 on April 27, but prevailing 5-3 on May 16.
Less than two weeks after that home win over the Redhawks, the Bees won again, eliminating Central Square 3-0 in a game where pitcher Keeanna Wolcik had her best outing of the season.
All that Wolcik was allowed was one hit, to Charlie Martin, and one walk, to Hannah Croteau, and B’ville committed an error. Most of the time, Wolcik used a wide variety of pitches to baffle Central Square’s hitters and piled up 14 strikeouts by game’s end.
Up against Redhawks pitcher Abby House, B’ville broke through with a run in the top of the third inning and added two runs in the sixth for insurance. Emma Bernet doubled, singled and drove in two of those runs, while Jillian Dunn had a single, double and RBI. Serena Capsello, Elizabeth Johns and Shelby Stisser scored one run apiece.
This set up a surprising Class AA semifinal at the Gillette Road Complex in Cicero on Thursday between no. 7 seed B’ville and no. 6 seed Utica Proctor, who had upended no. 3 seed Auburn 5-4, knocking out a Maroons side that had beaten the Bees twice in the regular season.
The Raiders would prove that the Auburn win was not a fluke by also eliminating the Bees in a 4-3 battle Out to reach its first sectional final in 17 years, Proctor scored first, in the bottom of the second, only to have B’ville answer with two runs in the top of the third.
Wolcik held that 2-1 lead until the fourth, when Stacey DiGiorgio’s double keyed a two-run Proctor rally. DiGiorgio added a sixth-inning run-scoring hit.
Alanna Phillips, who had scored three of the Raiders’ runs, pitched for Proctor, and blanked the Bees until the seventh, when B’ville scored a run to pull within one, but could not tie it as Phillips recorded the final out.
The Bees had just four hits, from four different players – Wolcik, Sarah Lalla, Emma Bernet (who relieved Wolcik in the pitcher’s circle in the sixth) and Jillian Dunn. Lalla got credit for an RBI as Johns, Capsello and Mackenzie Carhart scored B’ville’s runs.
Proctor advance to Monday’s sectional final against Liverpool, who rallied to beat C-NS 5-3 in the other semifinal. B’ville, meanwhile, finished a 10-11 campaign whose record did not reflect the milestones along the way.
Five seniors depart, including Capsello, Johns, Carhart, Caroline May and Brittany Husted, but Wolcik, Bernet, Dunn, Lalla, Stisser and Brooke Carlisle all come back in 2016.
