Right to the last game, and the last inning, of its 2017 season, the Jamesville-DeWitt baseball team battled. It knew no other way.
Having constantly made thrilling escapes in the late rounds of the Section III Class A playoffs, the Red Rams made one more comeback in Monday night’s sectional final against Whitesboro at Onondaga Community College, but saw its title dream denied in a 4-3, eight-inning defeat to the Warriors.
Despite the double-elimination tournament format, and the fact that it had one loss, J-D only needed to beat Whitesboro once to claim the crown after surviving tense games with Christian Brothers Academy and Camden to reach the final.
And it would get a tremendous pitching performance from Josh Kowalczyk, who had gone five innings against CBA, but returned to blank Whitesboro through the first three innings, matching Warriors counterpart Doug Rando.
Then things got wild in the bottom of the fourth, which took a long time to complete.
Pat Galer reached base with a bunt single and sped to third base when Matt Parkinson ran into first baseman Andrew LeClair trying to beat out a ground ball. At that exact moment, teams were called off the field for a lightning delay.
More than an hour later, the game resumed with Connor Kinahan taking over at first base for the injured LeClair, but just three pitches later Kowalczyk surrendered a single to Avery Cook that, with a throwing error, allowed Galer and Parkinson to score. Zach Wessinger added an RBI single to make it 3-0.
Yet like so many other times in this post-season run, J-D would fight back. Ian Crawford’s walk and two groundouts led to Parker Wing’s run-scoring single in the top of the fifth.
An inning later, Galer, pitching in relief of Rando, hit both Casey Kretsch and Gavin French. Then Scottie O’Bryan singled, which scored Kretsch and then, when the throw home was redirected to seocnd, allowed French to speed home, too, tying it, 3-3.
Keeping his pitch count low, Kowalczyk lasted through the seventh, and the game went to extra frames.
In the top of the eighth, Crawford singled and went to third base on O’Bryan’s sacrifice bunt and wild pitch. Nolan Giblin reached on an infield hit, and with runners on first and third and one out, Wing lined it right to Wessinger at third, and he fired to Cook at first, picking off Giblin for the double play.
Galer then tripled to lead off the bottom of the eighth. Kretsch relieved Kowalczyk and loaded the bases with nobody out. After a force play at home, Kretsch faced Joe Ruggiero, whose infield single allowed Galer to score the winning run.
Just getting to the final required, on Sunday night, J-D to avenge an earlier playoff defeat to Camden – which it did with a sixth-inning rally that proved enough to beat the Blue Devils 6-4.
French’s two-run double in the bottom of the first matched Camden’s first-inning output, but the Blue Devils scored again in the second and maintained that 3-2 edge over the next four innings thanks to John Mitchell’s solid pitching.
Sean Hlywa gave the Rams five innings of work, but had to get pulled in the sixth, when Camden loaded the bases before reliever Will Havens coaxed Nigel Mahar to ground out.
Fired up by that escape, J-D tied the game 3-3 in the sixth with LaClair’s leadoff triple and pinch-hitter Rowan Connor’s single. Not stopping there, the Rams took the lead with French’s third RBI, a single, and run-scoring hits by Giblin and Wing.
Those last two runs proved important, for Havens again loaded the bases in the top of the seventh and gave up a run when Shane Critelli walked with two out. A hit could tie the game or put Camden ahead, but Havens struck out Wyatt Palmer to end the game.
