If it wanted to climb closer to the top of the CNY Counties League standings, the West Genesee baseball team needed something big and decisive out of last week’s series against Baldwinsville.
But while the Wildcats only won two of the three games, the last one, a 7-1 decision on Thursday afternoon, was special in that it gave head coach Kevin Krause his 200th win with the program since taking over in 2002.
Like so many other games this spring, this one had plenty of pitching. For 4 ½ innings, it stayed close as WG ace Marshall Winn blanked the Bees, but only got a single run of support as B’ville counterpart Jack Andres was putting together his own strong showing.
Then, in the bottom of the fifth, the Wildcats put it all together, batting around and scoring six times while knocking out Andres. Chris Peer’s two-run single was the big blow as Winn, Matt Kot and Chris Bonacci also drove in runs. Bonacci went three-for-four overall.
Now staked to a big lead, Winn lasted six innings overall, only allowing one hit. Liam Barry relieved Winn in the seventh and gave up B’ville’s lone run, but closed it out to put Krause at the 200-win mark.
The Wildcats continued the Bees’ struggles in last Monday’s chilly series opener, prevailing 4-1 as pitcher Brian Hartnett allowed a first-running run, but nothing more in a five-inning stint where he gave up four hits and four walks before Billy O’Brien worked the last two innings in relief.
WG finished with seven hits against B’ville pitcher Nate Valentine, getting in front with single runs in the first and second innings before tacking on two insurance runs in the fifth. Kot led with two hits and two runs scored as he and Will Haag got one RBI apiece. Bonacci and Brian VanBeveren also scored runs.
A day later, the second game of the series featured more superb pitching on WG’s side from James Randall – and it still wasn’t enough as the Wildcats lost, 1-0, to B’ville.
Over five innings, Randall limited the Bees to three hits and a second-inning run as Jarrod Williams doubled and scored on Alex Robinson’s single. Keith Hagen followed with a scoreless sixth inning.
Yet the Wildcats could not do anything against B’ville pitcher Cameron Morrissey, who in his complete-game effort only gave up three hits – two by Will Haag, one by Tyler Gould. Morrissey only had two strikeouts, but got strong defense behind him throughout the afternoon.
The West Genesee softball team had a big opportunity on Wednesday to record its most important win of the season, but could not quite pull it off, taking a 4-3 defeat to three-time defending Section III Class AA champion Liverpool, the first of two meetings with the Warriors in as many weeks.
All of the Warriors’ runs came in the first inning, with Jenna Wike’s two-run double the big blow as Marcy and Dana Egan also drove in runs. WG pitcher Deanna Shackleton blanked Liverpool the rest of the way, giving the Wildcats a chance to come back.
With a run in the first inning and two more in the bottom of the sixth, WG did pull within one as Olivia Pontello, Abbey VanHorn and Grace Schnorr drove in those runs, but Wike, who serves as Liverpool’s pitcher, would not let the Wildcats pull even in her complete-game effort.
It wasn’t as close on Thursday at the Gillette Road complex, where WG lost, 9-0, to Cicero-North Syracuse, a team that won the first meeting 6-1 in Camillus on April 27 and, two weeks later, kept the Wildcats off the board.
Though WG managed five hits, two of them by VanHorn, it could not capitalize on them as C-NS pitcher Arianna Corasaniti got the shutout. Shackleton lasted 4 1/3 innings as she and Kayla Hoovler gave up 10 hits, three each by Sam Shallcross and Janelle Walters as they both drove in two runs and Brandi Feeney got three RBIs.
