Over a seven-day stretch, the Christian Brothers Academy baseball team played five times and won them all, four times reaching double digits in the run column.
CBA had maintained its win streak on May 12 when it won a wild 13-12 battle over Rochester McQuaid. Bryce Moore and Kent Wilson each had three RBIs as Sean Miller and Jason Boule drove in two runs apiece. Boule, Moore and Jack Lester finished with three hits as Luke Frontale and Jake Maser scored twice.
Two days later, the Brothers bashed Hannibal 18-1 in six innings (mercy rule), building an 11-1 lead through three innings and then adding seven runs in the sixth.
While Mike McCully and Carmen Spinoso split pitching duties, Leo Genecco was generating three hits at the plate and driving in two runs, with Lester getting four RBIs. Miller also had two RBIs as McCully, Spinoso, Moore, Boule, Joey Marsallo and Ryan O’Connor each scored twice.
There was another close call in Wednesday’s game at Phoenix, but again CBA made it through, edging the Firebirds 6-5.
The two sides traded two-run rallies in the first and fourth innings. In between, Phoenix struck for a run in the second, so it led 5-4 until the Brothers scored twice in the sixth to move in front for good.
McCully, who had thrown a five-inning perfect game a week earlier, got hit hard here, but still struck out nine before M.P. Geiss tossed two scoreless innings of relief to win it. Also, McCully had two hits and two RBIs as O’Connor, Boule, Moore and Kent Wilson each drove in one run.
CBA then faced Bishop Grimes on Thursday afternoon, with the Brothers claiming the battle of neighboring private schools by a 12-5 margin.
Grimes got the jump with a pair of first-inning runs off David Gross, and even after CBA went in front, the Cobras used single runs in the third, fourth and fifth innings to go in front again, 5-4, as Joe Wike, Matt Vonden Steinen and Dalton Damuth each had an RBI, with Seth Murphy scoring twice.
But the Brothers took over late, with four-run outbursts in the fifth and sixth innings as Miller went four-for-five, scoring four runs and getting three RBIs. Maser and Frontale each got three hits as Frontale and Moore matched Miller, driving in three runs apiece.
When CBA prevailed 14-3 over Cazenovia on Friday afternoon, it extended its win streak to 15 in a row, erasing an early 2-1 Lakers lead by tying it in the third and then scoring four runs in the fourth and fifth innings.
Boule had three hits and matched Leo Genecco with three RBIs apiece. Maser also had three hits and scored three runs as Frontale got two hits and a pair of RBIs.
Fayetteville-Manlius had to travel to West Genesee last Monday and lost, 7-1, to the Wildcats, who jumped out to a 3-0 edge through two innings on Tom Coleman, only to see the Hornets get on the board in the fifth as John Egnaczyk drove home Seth Reisman.
Yet Liam Barry would limit F-M to two hits, one each by Reisman and Christian Maloney, while accumulating 11 strikeouts. The Wildcats then got away with four runs in the bottom of the sixth, three of them on Chris Bonacci’s double.
Back home on Wednesday afternoon, F-M turned it around, defeating Auburn 8-1 as Maloney pitched and surrendered a first-inning run, but blanked the Maroons the rest of the way, striking out nine and giving up just three hits.
F-M’s pair of first-inning runs quickly erased any deficit, and it added single runs in the next two innings before a four-run sixth put the game away. Reisman and Max Parker each had two hits, with Maloney adding a double and RBI while also scoring twice. Ben Delmarsh scored two runs as Egnaczyk, Isaac Blanford, Sean Arthur and Jon Gaeta each drove in runs.
A Thursday rematch with West Genesee went 8-4 in the Wildcats’ favor, with F-M surrendering runs in every inning except the fourth and unable to quite catch up after getting within one, 4-3, in the fourth.
The Hornets only had five hits as Parker and Gaeta each got credit for an RBI. Most of WG’s production came from Joe Comins and Matt Kot, who each had three hits and combined for six RBIs.
F-M had to play again on Friday in a doubleheader against Baldwinsville, who won both games by 5-1 and 7-0 margins to clinch the Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division regular-season titles.
But if F-M beat Central Square Monday in the opening round of the Section III Class AA playoffs, it would face B’ville again in the quarterfinals as Grimes, the no. 11 seed in Class B, hosted no. 22 seed Altmar-Parish-Williamstown.
