No regular-season game meant more to the Solvay and Westhill baseball teams than Monday’s showdown, coming just one week before the start of the Section III Class B playoffs.
Solvay began the run-up to Westhill with a 9-2 romp over Altmar-Parish-Williamstown last Monday, a nice bounce-back from a 2-1 defeat to defending Section III Class A champion Vernon-Verona-Sherrill in a May 7 extra-inning thriller.
The Bearcats accumulated 20 hits and notched runs in each of the first four innings against the Rebels before a four-run seventh to support pitcher Jake Kyanka, who gave up just three hits and one walk while striking out eight.
Jake Dippold, having announced that he will attend NCAA Division I Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, celebrated that occasion with four hits against APW. Kyanka and Peterson got three hits apiece, while Colin Lucio, Mike Cimino and Josh Chrysler had two hits apiece.
A wild 23-13 win over Cazenovia followed on Wednesday afternoon, the margin a bit deceptive because the Bearcats, already up 5-0, struck for 10 runs in the bottom of the third for a 15-0 edge before relaxing a bit in the latter stages.
Jake Kyanka doubled, tripled and piled up five RBIs to lead Solvay’s 17-hit attack. Blake Bagozzi also doubled and tripled as he, along with Lucio and Mike Yaizzo, drove in two runs apiece. Yaizzo scored three runs and Dustin Harris scored three runs.
Dippold got his turn on the mound Friday, at Jordan-Elbridge, where it was nervous for a while before the Bearcats struck for seven runs in the top of the fifth to get away, eventually earning a 9-0 shutout over the Eagles.
Sammy Kippen, who doubled twice, joined Lucio, Cimino, Yaizzo and Josh Posnick in the RBI column. Dippold drove in a run, too, while he pitched five innings and held J-E to two hits while earning nine strikeouts. Kyanka and Nate Vona saw relief duty as, for the Eagles, Jordan Osborn took the loss.
A day later, Solvay dropped Altmar-Parish-Williamstown by that same 9-0 margin, this one a more gradual process that saw the Bearcats, who improved its record to 15-2, get a run in every inning except the second while the Rebels managed just one hit all afternoon.
Westhill had to fight its way past Marcellus 4-3 last Tuesday afternoon, trailing by a run before it tied the game in the bottom of the fourth and then went in front an inning later. Brian O’Mara had two hits and two runs scored as, for the Mustangs, Matt Spicer did the same.
More impressive was the Warriors’ 6-0 shutout over Bishop Ludden in a game moved back from a May 6 weather postponement, which proved a showcase for Ryan Roland’s pitching talents.
All Roland did was limit the Gaelic Knights to three hits and three walks while amassing 14 strikeouts. The Warriors, meanwhile, steadily produced runs in four of the first six innings as Roland and Joe Sweeny both had a double and RBI, with O’Mara scoring twice after getting issued three walks.
Another close game followed against Bishop Grimes on Friday, but Westhill pulled it out, 5-3, making it 10 wins in a row for the Warriors since that April 18 defeat at Solvay. That helped the Warriors rise to no. 12 in the state Class B rankings, something that didn’t sit well with Solvay partisans, given that the Bearcats were at no. 17, five spots back. But Solvay had a chance on Monday to change that in a hurry.
