On the brink of returning to the Section III Class AA championship game, the Baldwinsville baseball team got stopped.
It took a late-game comeback, plus extra frames, but top-seeded Liverpool managed to end the no. 5 seed Bees’ season in a 2-1, eight-inning thriller in last Monday night’s sectional Class AA semifinal at Onondaga Community College.
B’ville had reached this point with a 2-0 shutout over no. 4 seed West Genesee in the May 26 sectional quarterfinal, where Cody Kaestle pitched a complete game. Now it dealt with Liverpool, who had a 17-4 record, but two of those losses came to the Bees in a three-game series earlier in the month.
After a 24-hour weather postponement, B’ville and Liverpool hit the OCC turf knowing that the winner would have to turn around the very next night to face no. 2 seed and defending champion Cicero-North Syracuse.
Nick Borek started on the mound for B’ville, and Joel Ciccarelli got the pitching nod for Liverpool. For four innings they kept it 0-0, with a handful of opportunities on either side, but no conversions.
Then, in the top of the fifth, the Bees broke through. David Cerqua reached base, and he raced around to score when Anthony May doubled, the only run that Cicarelli allowed.
Liverpool stayed patient, though, and got to Borek for a run in the sixth to tie it, 1-1, before Billy Clifford took over in relief and kept the Warriors from going in front.
Now the Bees brought in Kaestle to pitch the bottom of the seventh. He loaded the bases with nobody out, but somehow escaped that jam to force extra innings. However, in the eighth the Warriors got another chance to produce the winning run, and did so.
Alex Robinson and Carson Hayes were the only other Bees to get hits beside Clifford, Cerqua and May as Liverpool’s Nick Antonello tossed three scoreless inning of relief after replacing Ciccarelli. Dillan Wilkinson and Kyle Watson drove in the Warriors’ runs as Jake Evans and Rocco Leone each got two hits.
The Bees finished with a 13-9 record. Though just five seniors graduate, it includes Kaestle, Clifford and Borek, plus Dan Rabe and Keenan Nellis. Still, a big group of players, including May, Cerqua, Robinson, Zach Bush, Cam Williams, Jarrod Williams and Cameron Morrissey, could return in 2017.
