Back from the week it spent fine-tuning all aspects of its game in the warm Florida sun at the Disney Wide World of Sports complex, the Baldwinsville baseball team plunged right into a wild series with two-time defending Section III Class A champion Cicero-North Syracuse.
The first game last Monday at the Gillette Road complex saw the Bees take four different leads and not hold on to any of them, the drama dragging out to 11 innings before B’ville lost, 10-9, to the Northstars.
In the first inning, the Bees netted three runs and chased C-NS starter Chris Cramer. The Northstars tied it, 3-3, and would do so again after the Bees went up 6-3 in the fourth inning.
Then, in the top of the sixth, B’ville snapped a 6-6 tie by scoring twice. It stayed that way until the bottom of the seventh, when, three outs from victory, the Bees were stunned when Connor Stanton, on a 3-0 pitch, hit a game-tying two-run home run.
Again, B’ville took the lead in the ninth inning, 9-8, and again C-NS tied it, 9-9, finally prevailing in the bottom of the 11th as Stanton finished a five-for-six evening that included three doubles and Dylan Frawley got four RBIs.
Zach Bush led the Bees with four hits and two runs scored. Alex Robinson scored three times as Anthony May doubled twice. Cam Williams also managed a pair of hits. Cameron Morrissey pitched five innings, with Carson Hayes, Ryan Carson and Nate Johns also seeing mound stints.
The second game of the series last Tuesday got rained out, but B’ville and C-NS would make it up on Thursday afternoon, and on its home diamond the Bees would pull even with the Northstars in a 6-1 victory.
B’ville scored twice in the bottom of the first, all that it would need, but got away with a run in the fifth and three more runs in the sixth. Bush and David Cerqua each got a pair of hits, with Cerqua, Hayes, Robinson, May, Frankie Levanti and Jarrod Williams earning one RBI apiece.
The series would get settled Friday night at NBT Bank Stadium as part of the annual “Strike Out Lou Gehrig’s Disease” Classic. Here, B’ville would run straight into C-NS ace Luke Dziados and get shut down in a 3-0 defeat.
Nate Valentine took his turn on the mound for the Bees and blanked the Northstars the most of the way – but only after C-NS had scored twice in the first inning on Nick Spinella’s single and added a run in the second.
Meanwhile, Dziados surrendered five hits – two by Jarrod Williams, one each by May, Bush and Cerqua – and two walks, but recorded six strikeouts and got solid defense behind him to keep the Bees off the board.
Amid all this, B’ville made up the one remaining game of its series with Fayetteville-Manlius on Wednesday afternoon, going to the Hornets’ home diamond and producing a 7-2 victory.
Five of the Bees’ runs came in the first two innings, with Frankie Levanti setting the tone as he finished three-for-three and scored twice. Alex Robinson scored three runs as Bush picked up a pair of RBIs. Hayes and Cam Williams drove in one run apiece.
Staked to that early lead, B’ville pitcher Jack Andres went all seven innings, overcoming eight F-M hits in his complete-game effort by earning seven strikeouts and not walking a single Hornets batter.
B’ville would have its next series this week against Syracuse City, who got swept by Liverpool but managed to take one of three games from West Genesee.
