Steeled by all the ups and downs it went through in the 2016 regular season, the Christian Brothers Academy baseball team saved its best work for the post-season, and it led to a Section III Class A championship.
Now, to repeat that title, the Brothers will need to through some more adversity, as evidenced by last Monday afternoon’s 10-2 defeat to Auburn in the 2017 season opener.
Before CBA could get settled down, Auburn had struck for a pair of first-inning runs. Then, after the Brothers scored in the top of the second, the Maroons answered with five runs in the bottom of the second.
Try as it could, CBA had no answer for that surge, Auburn pulling away with three more runs in the third inning as Ryan Chalupnicki, Brendan Williams, Ethan Blaisdell and Dan Nolan got two hits apiece for the Maroons. Jacob Coleman doubled as he and Jacob Sanders both scored twice, as did Williams and Blaisdell.
Elsewhere, Bishop Grimes got the most difficult assignment possible for its season opener – a visit to defending Section III Class B champion Solvay, with the Bearcats’ ace, Jake Dippold on the mound.
So it wasn’t a big surprise to see the Cobras, under first-year head coach Tom McLaughlin, struggle in an 8-0 defeat to Solvay. Dippold, a senior left-hander, lasted six innings, holding Grimes to three hits and not walking a batter while earning six strikeouts. Shawn Gashi, Joe Wike and Jordan Newman earned thos hits.
At the plate, the Bearcats pecked away at Grimes pitchers Gashi and Matt Tarby for two runs in each of the first four innings. Mike Cimino’s home run supplied the big blow as he finished with four RBIs, while Josh Posnick scored twice. Posnick, Dippold, Joey Guadagnolo and Nate Kosecki each drove in one run.
When Grimes played again Saturday at Onondaga Community College’s turf field, it was against East Syracuse Minoa, who like other local sides had endured plenty of weather postponement before taking the field.
The Spartans prevailed, 4-3, over the Cobras, erasing an early 1-0 deficit with two runs in the bottom of the second. Grimes tied it, 2-2, an inning later, and briefly went in front in the top of the fifth before ESM answered with two runs of its own in the bottom of that frame.
Combined, the Spartans’ pitching trio of Zach Grevelding, Tim Crouse and Ricky Neuser held the Cobras to three hits. ESM only had seven hits of its own against Grimes hurler Paul Cifonelli, but benefited from five Cobras errors as Grevelding tripled and scored twice, with Jack Silmeser and Jason Sweredoski earning one RBI apiece.
