Bent on ending a long championship drought, and coming so close to doing this a year ago, the West Genesee baseball team set out on its 2019 season with an impressive opening effort.
Against defending Section III Class A champion East Syracuse Minoa last Thursday afternoon, the Wildcats fought its way to a 5-4 victory over the Spartans.
WG’s last sectional title took place in 1977. Last spring, that long wait for a title nearly ended, but the Wildcats dropped a 1-0, 10-inning battle to Baldwinsville in the Class AA title game.
Liam Barry, WG’s ace pitcher, has graduated, as has several other key players from that team, but plenty of talent returns (nine players in all), and that leadership was needed against ESM.
The Spartans grabbed a 2-0 first-inning lead, only to have the Wildcats answer with four runs in the top of the second and another run in the fourth. Chris Bonacci and Brad May each had two RBIs, with Jake DePalma scoring twice.
Ryan Paige, who got the start, saw his 5-2 lead whittled down to one when the Spartans scored twice in the fourth, but Jack Gordon tossed three scoreless innings of relief, overcoming three walks and a hit to help WG hang on.
Impressive as this was, what Skaneateles did on Saturday when it opened with a 10-1 victory over Cazenovia also drew plenty of attention because pitching ace Cregg Scherrer did not allow a hit.
In five innings of work, Scherrer did struggle a bit with control, walking five, but made up for it with 12 strikeouts as James Musso and Joe Bruna, each pitching an inning of relief, completed the combined no-hitter.
Skaneateles jumped all over Cazenovia with a six-run first inning, adding three runs in the third and a run in the sixth. Scherrer and Tommy Reed both got a pair of RBIs, with Jack Whirtley, Jack Canty, Luke Viggiano and Nate Wellington earning two hits apiece. George Ross scored two runs.
Solvay, whose recent history includes sectional and regional Class B titles in 2017, began its season at Chittenango last Thursday with a dominant effort in all phases of the game as it buried the Bears 20-1 in five innings.
A six-run first inning set the tone, with the Bearcats adding two runs in the second before a seven-run outburst in the third. Through it all, Mason Sands led the way, notching four hits and scoring four times.
Josh Florczyk had a team-best five RBIs, with Carter Lee and Alex Gallardo each getting three hits, three runs scored and two RBIs. Robby Clark also drove in a pair of runs as Sands, Blaine Franklin and Brock Bagozzi had one RBI apiece.
Overall, Solvay had 17 hits and took advantage of 10 Chittenango errors. Three pitchers – Sands, Zach Bowen and Justin Rutkowski – combined to hold the Bears to five hits.
Bishop Ludden, under the direction of a new head coach, Tom McLaughlin, started its season at Weedsport, the game close until a big sixth inning helped the Warriors get away to top the Gaelic Knights 10-2.
A run in the second inning got Ludden in front 1-0. Weedsport answered it by scoring twice in the bottom of the second, and the two sides exchanged third-inning runs, Pat McGarvey and Patrick Towsley earning RBIs for the Gaelic Knights.
Tom Westers pitched for Ludden and kept it close until the bottom of the sixth, when Weedsport, up 4-2, tagged him and reliever Pete Dunham for six runs. McGarvey and Towsley had the Gaelic Knights’ only hits.
