With its busiest stretch of the season looming straight ahead, the Baldwinsville softball team attempted to find a higher gear – and succeeded.
The Bees were quite impressive in last Monday’s game at Auburn, battling through chilly, wet conditions to put together a massive third-inning rally at the plate that, combined with Keeanna Wolcik’s superb pitching, produced a 14-0 shutout of the Maroons.
In the top of the third, with the game still 0-0, B’ville broke through against Auburn pitcher Taylor Stearns and then didn’t let up, even when Stearns exited with one out and Katie Feocco replaced her. By the time the frame was done, the Bees had piled up 11 runs.
Kaycee Hawk led the attack, hitting a home run and finishing with four RBIs. Emma Bernet doubled and drove in three runs, while Allie Hotchkiss and Madison Ascioti earned two RBIs apiece. Wolcik and Shelby Stisser drove in single runs as Sarah Lalla matched Hawk by scoring three times.
Even one run would have proven enough for Wolcik, given the way she was pitching. Holding a solid Auburn lineup to two hits, Wolcik frustrated the Maroons and set a season mark with 17 strikeouts.
On Thursday afternoon, B’ville visited West Genesee, and it turned into the most exciting game of the Bees’ season so far as it gave up two different late leads, yet still prevailed over the Wildcats 7-3 in nine innings.
A pair of fourth-inning runs had B’ville up 2-0 before WG tied it, 2-2, in the bottom of the sixth. In the top of the seventh, the Bees went back in front, 3-2, but the Wildcats, down to its last outs, pulled even again with a single run.
Only in the top of the ninth did the Bees’ 17-hit effort get rewarded thanks to four runs off WG pitcher Deanna Shackleton. Jillian Dunn, with a double and three RBIs, led the way as Wolcik got three hits and two RBis. Hawk and Hotchkiss also drove in two runs.
Seven different players – Dunn, Hawk, Hotchkiss, Ascioti, Lalla, Bernet and Gabby Hahn – produced two hits apiece. Bernet pitched six innings, striking out six, before Wolcik took over and went the rest of the way.
And this led to a pair of games as part of the Northstars Elite Classic at Cicero’s Gillette Road complex on the weekend, the Bees playing two of them Saturday against Lancaster (Section VI) and Cohoes (Section II) before a Sunday battle against Rochester Mercy (Section V) was rained out.
Against Lancaster, B’ville pulled out a 6-5 victory over the Legends, but then lost, 3-0, to the Cohoes Tigers a few hours later. This left the Bees at 8-3 as it would get another shot at defending Section III Class AA champion Liverpool (who m it lost to by a 5-0 margin on April 19) this Thursday afternoon, in between games against Fayetteville-Manlius and Central Square.
