A pair of West Genesee pitchers – one current, the other a graduate – helped Onondaga’s 16-18 baseball team take the final steps to winning the Babe Ruth Mid-Atlantic regional championship close to home.
First Liam Barry, and then Jack Gordon, were victorious as Onondaga swept two games from Pine Forge (Pennsylvania) Thursday afternoon at Hopkins Road Park in Liverpool by scores of 3-2 and 13-2.
These victories clinched, for Onondaga, a berth in the 16-18 Babe Ruth World Series, which takes place Aug. 2-9 in Mobile, Alabama. And it completed a remarkable run through the loser’s bracket where Onondaga had to win six straight games in a span of five days.
Four of those wins took place from Sunday to Tuesday, in the wake of a 2-1 defeat to South Colonie, from the Albany area. Onondaga avenged that loss with a 16-6 victory before beating Chester (Pennsylvania) 11-1 to reach the finals.
Pine Forge, located just northwest of Philadelphia, was undefeated through three games. Only needing to beat Onondaga once, it forged a 2-0 lead through three innings of Thursday’s opener.
Barry settled down from there, blanking Pine Forge the rest of the way and waiting for his offense to produce something, which it finally did in the top of the fifth.
Kent Wilson (Christian Brothers Academy) doubled, moved to third base on a balk and scored on a single by Westhill’s Philip Zollo. David Cifonelli (Bishop Grimes) singled and, with two out, raced home on a pinch-hit single by Solvay’s McKyle Sands.
In the bottom of the fifth, Pine Forge stranded two runners. Then, in the sixth, Onondaga inched in front by loading the bases with one out and having Zollo beat out a potential inning-ending double play.
Once Barry had closed it out (with just 80 pitches as he struck out seven and only allowed two hits), Gordon took his turn, and nearly got knocked out in the first inning, Pine Forge loading the bases and getting a run before Wilson’s diving stop on a line shot prevented at least two more runs from scoring.
Onondaga took over from there, netting three runs in the second on hits by Cifonelli and Adam Douglas, and single runs in the fourth and fifth innings before an eight-run outburst in the fifth decided matters, capped by Gordon’s two-run double, which augmented his two-hit, five-strikeout complete game.
Valley started this regional tournament July 13 by getting a combined no-hitter from Adam Douglas and Jed Boyle while earning an 8-0 victory over Northern Delaware. Douglas and Boyle struck out 10 over seven innings.
A day later, Onondaga met South Colonie and took that 2-1 defeat. Despite great pitching from Barry and Brendan May’s RBI single in the sixth, Valley could not hold on to a 1-0 lead.
South Colonie tied it, 1-1, in the top of the seventh, forcing Barry to reach his pitch limit. A.J. Ortega took over in relief, but two hit batsmen and a sacrifice fly led to South Colonie’s go-ahead run.
The great run through the loser’s bracket began immediately after, Onondaga routing Prince George County (Maryland) 16-0. Matt Tarby and Mason Sands did not allow a hit between them, with Onondaga taking advantage of six Prince George errors. Chris Bonacci (West Genesee) went three-for-three with three RBIs as Wilson also drove in three runs.
Onondaga met Jamestown, the Southern Tier representative, last Monday afternoon, and were in big trouble before a big comeback produced a wild 10-6 victory.
Entering the top of the fifth, Onondaga trailed 6-1, but a pair of two-out errors led to three runs in that frame. Then, in the sixth, Onondaga loaded the bases before Mason Sands’ two-run single tied it, 6-6.
Bonacci’s line drive produced the go-ahead run, Ryan Bennett added a two-run single and May scored another with a sacrifice fly. Buoyed by this six-run sixth-inning rally, Sands pitched two scoreless innings of relief to close it out.
This led to last Tuesday’s rematch with South Colonie, and here Onondaga won big, 13-7, answering a four-run first inning from South Colonie with six runs of its own in the bottom of the first, three of them on Wilson’s triple.
Yet it wasn’t until the fourth that Onondaga went ahead for good, breaking a 6-6 tie with five runs (two of them on Bennett’s triple) and adding two runs an inning later. Jack Gordon’s four innings of solid relief pitching gave him the win.
Later that day, when Onondaga defeated Chester County (Pennsylvania) 11-1, it had reached the finals. A three-run first inning set the tone as Boyle pitched a complete game, holding Chester to four hits. Bennett and May ruled at the plate, each with three hits and four RBIs.
A 24-hour rain postponement gave Onondaga the rest it needed before its decisive sweep of Pine Forge.
And now it’s on to Alabama and the Babe Ruth World Series, where Onondaga will be one of 10 teams broken up into two pools of five. Four games of pool play will determine which three teams in each pool advances to single-elimination rounds.
