Week by week, effort by effort, the East Syracuse Minoa softball team is gaining ground on its OHSL Freedom division rivals.
One milestone was reached by the Spartans last Monday afternoon, when it hosted Christian Brothers Academy and managed to pull off three different comebacks to earn an 11-9 victory over the Brothers.
CBA gained leads of 2-0 and 5-3 in the first two innings, only to have ESM get back even, 5-5, by the end of the second inning. Then the Brothers built up a 9-5 advantage by the fourth inning as Catherine Burns and Abigail Benware, with two RBIs apiece, led the charge.
Unfazed by any of this, the Spartans rallied once more, getting two runs in the fourth and then scoring three times in the fifth inning to pull ahead for good, 10-9, before it tacked on an insurance run in the sixth.
Courtney Burgun finished with four RBIs to lead ESM, who saw Julia Jackson and Aubrey Williams each earn three hits. All told, the Spartans had 16 hits, two each from Sam short, Aricia Williams, Taylor Cassella and Alyssa Daly, with Daly and Aubrey Williams each scoring three times. Jackson had two RBIs and scored two runs.
When CBA took its shot at defending Section III Class B champion Solvay on Thursday afternoon, it lost, 5-1, to the Bearcats, who scored all of its runs in the first two innings before Julia Boule settle down and pitched a shutout the rest of the way. The Brothers had just one hit (by Julia Sullivan) off Solvay ace Lauren Nichols, who earned 11 strikeouts.
A 4-2 defeat to Oswego followed on Saturday afternoon, with the Buccaneers building a 4-0 lead through three innings thanks to Mariah Galletta’s three RBIs.
Boule would blank the Bucs from there, and CBA (4-5) got 10 hits off Oswego pitcher Hannah Gorman, but only manage single runs in the fourth and sixth inning. Hall still managed three hits and an RBI as she and Boule scored the Brothers’ runs.
ESM cooled down, too, in Saturday’s 5-0 defeat to Cortland, where it got just one hit (by Burgun) off Purple Tigers pitcher Cady Walts, who managed 10 strikeouts and didn’t allow a walk.
The game stayed close until the bottom of the fifth, when Cortland scored four times against pitcher Shaina Brilbeck. Ashley Shortsleeve led the Purple Tigers with three RBIs.
Fayetteville-Manlius played twice on Wednesday as part of a tournament in Oswego, falling 15-6 to Auburn in the opener as the Hornets scored five first-inning runs, but only after the Maroons went ahead 7-0 in the top of the first. Lily Fish had two RBIs, with Sara Arthur adding an RBI as Auburn’s Jenna Staniszeski had two doubles and four RBIs.
A 13-3 defeat to Central Square followed, with the Hornets again productive in the first inning, scoring twice, but quiet from that point onward. Alex Monasefsky picked up two hits and Kathryn Colone earned an RBI, but the Redhawks earned runs in five of the first six innings and pulled clear.
Finishing the tournament on a high note, F-M defeated Mexico 7-2 on Thursday afternoon, erasing a 2-0 deficit by scoring twice in the fifth inning and then putting together a decisive five-run rally in the sixth. Sarah Vaccaro doubled twice and drove in two runs as Madelyn Goskoski added a pair of RBIs. Monasefsky also drove in a run.
Bishop Grimes lost, 7-3, to the combined Syracuse City team on Wednesday, trailing most of the way as Syracuse used a four-run sixth inning to earn its eventual margin. Claudia Cook and Kendall Mancuso had one RBI apiece for the Cobras as Brianna Squier took the loss despite earning eight strikeouts.
A day later, the Cobras, facing a Cato-Meridian team that gave up 24 runs to Bishop Ludden in its previous game, lost to the Blue Devils 12-1, with Mancuso driving home Becca Vinciquerra with Grimes’ lone run in the fifth after Cato had built a 5-0 lead, and before it would add five runs in the sixth and two runs in the seventh.
