A season ago, the West Genesee baseball team saw its season end in a Section III Class AA semifinal played at Onondaga Community College.
But when the Wildcats returned to that same round, at that same OCC venue, on a chilly, overcast Sunday afternoon, it turned out quite different, WG shutting out Liverpool 6-0 to earn a trip to Wednesday night’s AA title game.
Will Randall pitched a complete game, holding the Warriors to five hits. While far from dominant, Randall continually escaped possible jams, Liverpool stranding two runners on base four different times in the first six innings and committing three errors, while WG did not make a single error.
To move within a victory of the program’s first sectional championship since 1977, the no. 2 seed Wildcats had to replicate its success against no. 6 seed Liverpool in their pair of regular-season meetings, which it won 13-0 on April 15 and 6-2 on May 1.
Randall nearly got pulled in the top of the first inning, issuing three walks. But poor Liverpool base-running led to one out and, with two down, coaxed Anthony Sgroi to ground out on a 3-2 pitch to end the threat.
Evan Reichel, who had tossed his own complete-game shutout in WG’s 2-0 win over Baldwinsville in the AA quarterfinal three days earlier, singled home Randall with the game’s first run in the bottom of the first off Liverpool starter Ryan Stott.
Two innings later, in the bottom of the third, Joey Vetter launched the Wildcats’ decisive rally by reaching first on an error. With one out, Stott hit Brian VanBeveren, and Colin BeVard singled home Vetter before Reichel got his second run-scoring hit, and a throwing error allowed BeVard to score and make it 4-0.
Any time the Warriors tried to answer, Randall shut it down. With two on and two out in the third, Jake Pieklik flew outt, and in the fourth, two Liverpool men were on base when Randall made Kyle Terzini look at strike three.
Another flyout in the top of the sixth stranded two more Warrior runners, and WG tacked on a pair of insurance runs against Liverpool reliever Tom Bianchi in the bottom of the sixth, Vetter contributing an RBI single and Randall doubling before Reichel drew a bases-loaded walk.
Hours later, WG found out that it would face top seed Cicero-North Syracuse in Wednesday night’s sectional final at 7 p.m., also at OCC, after the Northstars used three run in the bottom of the sixth inning to rally past defending champion Auburn 6-5.
In doing so, C-NS avenged two regular-season losses to Auburn – something the Wildcats now have the same chance to pull off, having fallen twice to the Northstars this spring.
Likely, it will mean Reichel trying to outperform C-NS’s ace, Steven Theetge, who threw 125 pitches in a 10-inning, 3-2 win over Syracuse in last Thursday’s sectional quarterfinal, and also beat WG when the two sides met in Camillus on April 27.
