Perhaps the best way the Fayetteville-Manlius baseball team could measure its own progress was by playing a three-game series against defending Section III Class AA champion Cicero-North Syracuse.
And the Hornets held up quite well, splitting a doubleheader last Monday afternoon with the Northstars at the Gillette Road complex.
F-M lost the first game 4-1, held to three hits by C-NS ace Luke Dziados, one each by Jack Grifo, Josh Loeffler and Steven Laurie. Though Peter Miller pitched well for the Hornets, he couldn’t quite keep up with Dziados, who also doubled as Connor Stanton added a double and two RBIs.
But the Hornets rallied late to beat C-NS 6-5 in eight innings in the second game, overcoming the Northstars’ 12-9 hit advantage with timely offensive plays, especially from Sean Putnam, who had two doubles and three RBIs.
Kyle Walters and Colin Sommers also drove in runs as Walters joined Anthony Nucerino notching a pair of hits. While the Hornets got to C-NS reliever James Salamone after Josh Ludden’s exit, Nucerino pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings following Sommers’ five-inning starting stint.
The series got decided on Thursday, and it started in the worst possible way for F-M, yet it almost made it all the way back before taking a 9-6 defeat to the Northstars.
During the top of the first inning, C-NS jumped all over Hornets starter Colin Green and took a 9-0 lead. Still, Green stayed in the game and threw a shutout the rest of the way, earning six strikeouts.
Meanwhile, F-M scored thee runs in the bottom of the first off Northstars starter Chris Cramer, and then cut the margin to 9-5 with two runs in the fifth. Another run in the sixth forced C-NS to use reliever Ben Christian, who thwarted the Hornets’ comeback.
Putnam, with two hits and three RBIs, led the resurgence, while Matt Truman also got a pair of hits. Laurie drove in a run as Grifo scored twice.
More frustration was found in Friday’s 8-7 defeat to Baldwinsville, where the Hornets, mostly helped by a four-run second inning, led 6-1, until the Bees scored five times in the bottom of the fifth to catch up.
A sixth-inning exchange of runs followed, but B’ville won it in the bottom of the seventh when Anthony May doubled off Nucerino, who had relieved Kyle Walters in the fifth.
Then, with Billy Clifford at the plate (his two-run double had keyed that fifth-inning rally), an errant throw from home to third allowed May to race home with the decisive run. Nucerino’s double and triple had produced four RBIs, with Grifo, Putnam and Walters also driving in runs.
Bishop Grimes was far from all this, making its trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina during the April school break more productive by including some OHSL Liberty division contests in the mix.
That included last Monday’s opener of the trip, a tough 6-5 win over Cazenovia where the Cobras raced out to a 5-1 lead through three innings, chasing Lakers starter Matt Regan. Matt Tarby earned three RBIs as he and Johnny Wike each got two hits and David Cifonelli added an RBI.
Trevor Pokines pitched quite well until the fifth, when Cazenovia tagged him for three runs. Pokines tried to close it out, but exited in the seventh as the Cobras, having added a key run in the sixth, saw the margin cut to one before Chris Mancuso was able to record the final outs.
This helped the Cobras absorb Tuesday’s 8-0 defeat to Westhill, who had handed league-leading Skaneateles its first defeat of the season, but Grimes would also take a 13-9 loss to Watertown IHC and a 13-1 defeat to Horseheads (Section IV) before returning home.
Against IHC, the Cobras surrendered an early 3-1 edge when the Cavaliers notched six runs in the top of the third. Eventually, the deficit grew to 11-3 before a furious comeback where Grimes netted six total runs in the fifth and sixth innings.
Wike tripled twice, with Mancuso, Pokines and Matt Vonden Steinen each getting a pair of RBIs. David Cifonelli, Paul Cifonelli and Camden Ciotoli also drove in runs. IHC’s Trent Mitchell hit the game’s only home run and finished with three RBIs as Will Magovney tripled and drove in four runs.
But the most impressive effort came on Friday, when Grimes upended state-ranked Skaneateles 7-1 in large part due to the pitching of Pokines, who threw a complete game and quieted the Lakers’ deep lineup.
It was still 0-0 when, in the top of the fourth, Grimes broke through with a run. Poor Skaneateles defense led to two runs an inning later, and with the bases loaded in the top of the sixth, Mancuso delivered a two-run single as part of a three-run rally that all but put the game away.
