If the Fayetteville-Manlius baseball team achieves something special in 2017, it might look to the long, wet battle it waged with two-time defending Section III Class AA champion Cicero-North Syracuse last Thursday as a turning point.
Beaten badly by the Northstars earlier in the week, the Hornets managed to withstand the best effort of C-NS ace Luke Dziados and, in 10 innings, prevail 2-1.
Back in that first game, C-NS routed F-M 16-0, taking command with a five-run third inning and six runs in the top of the fourth. More runs would follow as pitcher Chris Cramer combined with reliever Josh Ludden on a three-hit shutout.
Brendan Reilly, with three hits, led a 16-hit Northstars attack. Connor Stanton scored three times and drove in three runs as Dylan Frawley and Joe Brisson had two RBIs apiece. Joe Mallaro and Michael Jenkins each scored three times.
The rematch between F-M and C-NS would prove far different, though.
Following Frawley’s first-inning single that scored Reilly, the Northstars were shut out the rest of the way as the Hornets’ duo of Chris Maloney (5 2/3 innings) and Kyle Walters (4 1/3 innings) combined for 10 strikeouts and just four hits allowed.
Together, they would outlast Dziados, who saw his 1-0 lead disappear when F-M scored in the bottom of the fifth. Dziados kept it tied until the eighth, when Ben Christian took it over and maintained the 1-1 draw until the Hornets, with two out in the bottom of the 10th, plated the winning run.
Walters and Steve Laurie drove in F-M’s runs as Colin Sommers and Mitch Seabury joined Walters in earning two hits apiece. Seabury and Aiden Jordan scored the runs.
Back on Monday, Jamesville-DeWitt went to Cortland and, with one big rally, beat the Purple Tigers 6-4. It was still 0-0 when the Red Rams batted around in the top of the fifth inning, scoring all six of its runs.
Nolan Giblin’s two-run double and Casey Kretsch’s two-run single were the big blows, with Gavin French adding a run-scoring single. Given that 6-0 lead, pitcher Will Havens, who went 4 1/3 innings, watched Cortland get three runs in the bottom of the fifth and another run in the sixth before the Rams held on behind Kretsch’s relief effort.
J-D then swept Cortland on Wednesday, the 10-3 victory featuring the Rams scoring runs in four of the first five innings, capped by a four-run third. Kretsch nd Matt Cappelletti both hit home runs, and drove in two runs apiece. Giblin also had two RBIs.
French and Andrew LeClair each had an RBI as LeClair scored there runs and Luke Smith crossed the plate twice. Josh Kowalczyk pitched six strong innings, giving up five hits and five walks, but striking out four. Sean Hlywa worked the last inning in relief.
After all this, F-M and J-D were set to face each other on Saturday before the incessant late-week rains caused a postponement.
Bishop Grimes returned to action last Tuesday, against Marcellus, and relied on its bats to deliver a 12-8 victory over the Mustangs. Then it would face Westhill, where former Cobras head coach Mark Kelley now served as an assistant to Ted Klamm.
The Warriors prevailed, 5-2, as it went in front with a pair of third-inning runs and tacked on a run in the fifth before Grimes scored twice in that frame to pull back within one, both runs scoring on Matt Vonden Steinen’s double.
But the Warriors got away again with two insurance runs in the top of the seventh. Ben Coates had three of Westhill’s nine hits, earning two RBIs as he also pitched six solid innings, striking out eight to overcome five hits and three walks. Skyler Gashi doubled and singled.
