What was immediately apparent for the Baldwinsville baseball team was that, in order to make headway and challenge two-time defending section III Class AA champion Cicero-North Syracuse, it would need to get its bats going.

That was the Bees’ dilemma as, for the second year in a row, it would navigate through most of its regular season in series against the other teams in the CNY Counties league, one per week, starting with two games against Fayetteville-Manlius.

The opening game of that series last Monday saw the Bees fall to the Hornets 5-0, victimized by the strong pitching of F-M ace Colin Sommers, who in 5 2/3 innings held B’ville to five hits while striking out eight.

Cam Williams had two of those hits, with Alex Robinson, Dan Cerqua and Zach Bush also getting hits. Meanwhile, the Hornets got all the offense it needed in a three-run first inning, tacking on two runs in the fourth as Jack Grifo, with two hits and two RBIs, led the way.

Back home two days later, B’ville got even with F-M in a tense 2-1 duel that, for five innings, was scoreless. Alex Savocool was superb, but was finding that Hornets counterpart Peter Miller was just as good.

Combined, the two teams had just four hits. Yet F-M took the lead in the top of the sixth as Kyle Walters’ single scored Jack Grifo, only to have B’ville answer it on run-scoring hits from Williams and Carson Hayes. Savocool’s complete game included seven strikeouts and just two walks. Williams and Robinson were responsible for B’ville’s lone hits.

The third game between B’ville and F-M got pushed back until later in the season because the Bees had to fly out to Florida for its week of games at the Disney Wide World Of Sports Complex.

That got underway on Saturday afternoon, with B’ville shutting out St. Joseph’s Villa (Virginia) 14-0, a game shortened to five innings as the Bees plated eight runs in the top of the second in support of Nate Valentine, who held Villa to three hits and struck out four.

Williams went four-for-four to lead B’ville’s 14-hit effort at the plate. Hayes added three hits as he, along with Bush, Cam Williams, Anthony May and Frankie Levanti each drove in a run. Cerqua and Robinson fared better, earning three RBIs apiece. Jarrod Williams had two RBIs.