What was earned Sunday night by the Liverpool baseball team when it defeated Rome Free Academy 1-0 in the Section III Class AA championship game at Onondaga Community College had its roots in what took place on this same field, in this same round, 12 months earlier.
On that particular evening, the Warriors had to watch archrival Cicero-North Syracuse win its second consecutive sectional title. And catcher Jake Sisto said he knew what would happen next.
“When we left the field (that night), there was no doubt we were coming back here with a vengeance,” said Sisto.
To that end, the work started long before tryouts in March. During the winter, said Sisto, he and several other players would go to the turf at Liverpool High School Stadium to field ground balls and work on other defensive skills.
“We worked on our craft every single day,” said Sisto.
Combine that extra effort with extra motivation, and the end result was a 20-3 record and a sectional title, the last step taken by the top-seeded Warriors against no. 3 seed RFA, whose path to the final opened up when C-NS was stunned in the quarterfinals by Fayetteville-Manlius.
Left-hander Jeff Destefano was on the mound for Liverpool, opposed by Black Knights right-hander Tyler Schoff. They both dealt with men on base in the first two innings, but had little trouble quashing those rallies.
Then, in the top of the third, all of those off-season defensive drills paid off in one stunning play.
Shea Simons had singled for RFA, and then Gino DeBlasiis doubled down the left-field line to the wall, with Simons racing around third toward home.
Joe Zywicki picked up the ball and threw to shortstop Jake Evans, who sent a perfect relay to Sisto at the plate. Simons was beat by several steps, tagged out, and the game remained 0-0.
Destefano led off the bottom of the fourth with a single and sprinted to second base on a wild pitch. Sisto bunted to move Destefano to third, bringing up Evans, who said he knew his task – “just get the ball in play, anything to get the run in” – and poked a single to right that allowed Destefano to score.
Of course, Destefano’s biggest contribution came on the mound. He struck out 10 and allowed just four hits, with head coach Fred Terzini saying that he had never seen Destefano enjoy better command of his pitches, especially the fastball.
There was plenty of toughness shown, too, as when Destefano struck out DeBlasiis with the tying and go-ahead runs on base to get out of a fifth-inning jam. Yet by the time Sisto picked Schoff off third base to end the sixth, Destefano had passed his mandatory pitch count.
Thus, the Warriors had to go to someone else – but it turned out be right-handed ace Nick Antonello, who had pitched a complete game three nights earlier in the Warriors’ sectional semifinal win over Baldwinsville. Destefano said he didn’t want to leave, but since he had to, “I can rely on (Nick) any time.”
Antonello didn’t waste much time in the seventh, coaxing Owen Hetherington to ground out and then striking out Aaron Simons and Brett Granger to lock up the sectional title.
Even as players, coaches and fans mingled on the OCC turf in celebration after the final out, there was anticipation about returning to this same field Saturday night for the Class AA regional final against Section II champion Niskayuna. Both Destefano and Antonello could pitch with a berth in the June 10-11 state final four in Binghamton on the line.
