When the Section III Class AA softball playoffs start later this week, the theme is familiar – Liverpool holds the title and is looking for a fourth consecutive banner, while Cicero-North Syracuse is bent on taking it back.
They do so in very different post-season positions. The Warriors got the top seed with its 17-1 record and, in the quarterfinals, will host either no. 8 seed West Genesee or no. 9 seed Utica Proctor.
Meanwhile, the Northstars’ 12-8 overall record meant getting a no. 7 seed, meaning it would have to beat a Fayetteville-Manlius side it routed twice the week before in order to earn a quarterfinal trip to no. 2 seed Rome Free Academy.
Liverpool, no. 6 in the latest state AA rankings, hosted West Genesee last Tuesday afternoon and, much like their meeting a week earlier in Camillus, it proved close and low-scoring, but the Warriors, with one big second-inning rally and solid pitching from Jenna Wike, beat the Wildcats 4-1.
WG struck in the top of the first as Abbey VanHorn singled home Teagan Dow, but Liverpool countered with all of its runs in the bottom of the second, two of them driven home on Avery Marcy’s single as Olivia Hayden also had a run-scoring hit.
Wildcats pitcher Deanna Shackleton blanked the Warriors from there, only giving up six hits. But despite six hits of its own (two of them by Dow), WG could not cash them in against Wike, who also pitched a complete game and overcame a pair of errors to earn the win.
Another impressive effort came on Friday, when Liverpool took on state Class B no. 6-ranked Oneida and shut out the Indians 2-0 to close the regular season on a seven-game win streak.
It was 0-0 when, in the top of the fourth, Liverpool broke through for a run, and then scored again in the top of the fifth. That was plenty for Wike, who stifled the Oneida bats in a three-hit, complete-game effort that included nine strikeouts. Wike also had an RBI as Dana Egan and Avery Marcy scored the runs and Hayden went three-for-three.
C-NS had quite an impressive effort in last Monday’s game at F-M, pouring on the runs to beat the Hornets 14-5. Then, in a rematch 24 hours later at the Gillette Road complex, the Northstars again reached double digits on the scoreboard and prevailed 12-7.
The runs continued to pile up for C-NS in Friday’s 22-0 shutout of Vernon-Verona-Sherrill, part of the VVS tournament where Brandi Feeney took home MVP honors with Victoria Dunn and Juju Sculco earning All-Tournament honors.
