Like so many other Central New York softball teams, Baldwinsville had to be content with practicing indoors for a majority of the time leading up to last Monday’s season opener against Fayetteville-Manlius.
But it didn’t take long for the Bees’ off-season work, which included military-style training and bonding sessions last summer, to pay off in the resilience it had to show coming from behind to beat the Hornets 8-7.
All seemed to go fine in the early stages. Though a first-inning run put the Hornets in front, B’ville used two runs in the third and another in the fourth to go up 3-1.
Then F-M batted around in the top of the fifth and didn’t stop until six runs had crossed the plate, with Isabella Bastian’s bases-clearing triple the key blow as she got three RBIs, with Lily Fish, Alex Monasefsky and Madelyn Goskoski driving in one run apiece.
Yet that 7-3 lead didn’t last long. B’ville stormed back to tie it, 7-7, with four runs in the bottom of the fifth, two of them driven home on Madelyn Shuler’s single, and with the score still tied in the seventh, Jillian Dunn delivered the double that plated the Bees’ winning run off Sarah Vaccaro.
That was Dunn’s third hit of the game, as she had previously singled twice. Shuler and Dunn both got two RBIs, with single runs driven in by Allie Hotchkiss, Jenna Kocik, Chloe Branshaw and Madison Asicoti. Kayla Young got two hits and scored two runs as she pitched 4 2/3 innings, striking out eight before Kocik took over in relief.
B’ville had hoped the momentum from this win would carry over into the first of two regular-season showdowns with three-time defending Section III Class AA champion Liverpool, but it could not get on the board in a 6-0 loss to the Warriors.
Much of the damage was rendered in the first two innings, with Liverpool jumping out to a 5-0 lead. Kayla Young, the Bees’ pitcher, settled down from there, blanking the Warriors until the top of the seventh.
However, B’ville’s bats managed just four hits off Liverpool pitcher Jenna Wike, who struck out five. Young, Shuler, Kaycee Hawk and Madison Ascoti had those hits, while the Warriors got three hits and two RBIs from Ashley Teixeira, with Olivia Hayden and Danielle Alberici getting two hits apiece.
Now the Bees would follow Liverpool to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for a week of game action against foes from around the country during the school break.
