Whenever the weather behaved long enough, the Christian Brothers Academy, East Syracuse Minoa and Jamesville-DeWitt baseball teams were quite busy, both at home and away, and in other larger venues, too.
And by week’s end, the Brothers and Spartans were facing each other, giving Jack Sheridan yet another showcase as the CBA pitching ace continued his comeback season on Saturday by delivering a one-hitter in a 7-0 shutout.
From the outset, Sheridan had his best stuff, and kept it up throughout the afternoon as he held ESM to a single clean hit, by Tyler Harrig, not issuing a walk and earning six strikeouts.
By the time he was done, Sheridan had a nice cushion thanks to a Brothers attack that got to Spartans starter Ryan Seburn for two runs in the first inning. A fifth-inning tally followed before CBA broke it open in the top of the seventh when it got four runs off Nick Castrello, who had relieved Seburn.
Eric Little had three of CBA’s nine hits, doubling twice and finishing with a pair of RBIs. Sheridan doubled and drove in a run, with Bryce Moore adding an RBI. Nate Burns singled, doubled, walked and scored three times.
Before all this, ESM entered the state Class A rankings at the no. 20 spot – and then backed up that lofty position in last Tuesday afternoon’s 4-1 victory over Central Square, which required yet another round of late-game heroics to validate a tremendous pitching performance by Shane Krawec.
Other than a fourth-inning exchange of runs, the Spartans and Redhawks had kept things quiet and were tied, 1-1. Then, in the bottom of the sixth, ESM broke out with a three-run rally, the key blow Zach Grevelding’s two-run double. Castrello added a double and RBI.
Meanwhile, Krawec, in his complete-game, four-strikeout effort, gave up seven hits and two walks, but got strong defense behind him that prevented all sort of Central Square opportunities.
This put ESM at 8-2 at the halfway mark of its regular season, and it visited Phoenix on Thursday afternoon, where it beat the Firebirds 7-2 in a game where Tom Ghika dueled with Dan Frawley for four inning, neither side scoring a run.
Then, in the bottom of the fifth, the Spartans got to Frawley for four runs, tacking on three more runs against reliever Jordan Jock an inning later. Jimmy Griffin was the only ESM batter to get two hits, with Tyler Harrig scoring twice as Mason Hausler, Jeff Loder, Dan Williams and Sam Jenkins each drove in a run.
CBA faced West Genesee Thursday at NBT Bank Stadium in the Strike Out Lou Gehrig’s Disease Classic, which raised money for the ALC Clinc at Upstate Medical Center.
While the thrill of playing on the Syracuse Chiefs’ home field was nice, the Brothers found itself on the wrong end of a no-hitter spun by Wildcats senior Colin BeVard, who shut down CBA in an 8-0 decision.
BeVard gave up walks to Jack Sheridan, William Ierlan and A.J. Pankowski, with WG also committing a pair of errors. But BeVard did not give up a clean hit while, at the same time, his two hits and two RBIs keyed a steady Wildcats lineup that scored in five of the first six innings. Mike McCully took the loss.
Two days earlier, CBA had pounced on Cortland, beating the Purple Tigers 8-1 in a game where Jack Sheridan had his best showing of the spring, a one-hit complete-game gem where he gave up a first-inning run but dominated from there, getting strong defense behind him and only allowing one walk.
It helped, too, that the Brothers had scored four runs off Cortland starter Jake Woods in the first inning and had doubled that run total by the fifth inning. Bryce Moore’s pair of hits led to three RBIs as Eric Little added three hits, three runs scored and two RBI. Sheridan also drove in a run as Nate Burns got two hits and scored three times.
A rematch with Cortland on Wednesday had a different result, though. CBA lost, 5-3, never leading in a game where the Purple Tigers scored twice in the first and third innings off Dom Spinoso (who still had 11 strikeouts) to get all the runs it needed.
CBA, with its seven hits, could not overcome the solid work by Cortland pitcher Dan Steve, who managed nine strikeouts. This came despite seeing Burns use two hits to drive in all of the Brothers’ runs – one in the third, and two more in the fifth.
J-D, rained out last Monday against Oswego, did play on Wednesday and topped Fulton 4-1 for its fifth win in a row, getting in front with a pair of second-inning runs, which was all Dylan McGee needed as he threw a complete-game gem, holding the Red Raiders to three hits and earning five strikeouts.
Single runs in the sixth and seventh innings gave the Red Rams more of a cushion to top Fulton, though it had just six hits. Parker Wing drove in two runs, while Casey Kretsch and Andrew LeClair had one RBI apiece.
Then the Oswego game was made up on Friday afternoon and J-D won 6-5, the game getting nervous in the end when the Buccaneers, trailing 6-2, notched three runs in the top of the seventh before Kretsch, pitching in relief of Will Havens, recorded the final out.
Havens had gone five innings and struck out five while holding Oswego to five hits. Kretsch doubled and drove in two runs, part of a three-hit effort at the plate as Wing and Matt Cappelletti got two hits apiece, Cappelletti scoring a pair of runs and Gavin French adding an RBI.
