It promises to be another exciting season in area high school softball, with Jamesville-DeWitt and Christian Brothers Academy both defending Section III titles they won last spring – the Red Rams in Class A, the Brothers in Class B.
Games were scheduled for the first week of April, always subject to the whims of weather, but even after a heavy snow early on April 1, the diamond was clear for CBA to open at Altmar-Parish-Williamstown a day later.
And it proved quite successful for the Brothers, who scored 14 runs in the first inning, batting twice around, and added 10 runs in the third inning on the way to a 28-1 victory over the Rebels.
Maya Geiss led the way with four of CBA’s 17 hits, scoring four runs while recording five RBIs. Maddy Tallman added three hits, also scoring four times.
Tallman, along with Emily Hall, Abby Benware and Makenzie Witz, finished with three RBIs apiece as they combined to score 14 runs. Victoria Hall scored three runs, with Julia Griffith, Julia DelPino and Maura Clare Conan each scoring twice.
CBA played again a day later, hosting West Genesee, not quite reaching the same extreme numbers that it did against APW, but still doing plenty to defeat the Wildcats 12-5.
In fact, WG led 2-0 going to the bottom of the third before the Brothers took charge with a four-run rally. Four more runs followed in the fourth, with a three-run fifth adding to the eventual margin.
Geiss hit CBA’s first home run of the season, with Tallman’s pair of hits leading to three RBIs and three runs scored as she also pitched a complete game. Griffith, DelPino and Witz each drove in two runs as Benware and Emily Hall matched Tallman in scoring three times.
None of this kept CBA from a pair of defeats Saturday at Carrier Park, where Oneida beat them 5-0 and Whitesboro outscored the Brothers by a score of 11-9.
Only Emily Hall managed a hit against Oneida pitcher Kyra Shlotzhauer, with the Indians scoring all of its runs in the first three innings.
Then CBA overcame a 5-1 deficit to Whitesboro with seven total runs in the third and fourth innings, and were still in front 9-8 before the Warriors scored three times in the bottom of the sixth and managed to earn the final outs. Benware, Geiss and Emily Hall still scored two runs apiece.
In that same Saturday event, East Syracuse Minoa, who will play home games at Carrier Park this spring, split its two games on Saturday, dropping its own close decision to Whitesboro 6-5 after it beat Camden 4-1.
Against the Blue Devils, the Spartans got most of its runs in the second inning, thanks to Franchesca Polcaro’s RBI double and a two-run single by Rivers. Morgan Ransom added a sixth-inning RBI single as Shaina Brilbeck pitchd a complete game as Polcaro finished with three hits.
Then ESM jumped out 4-0 on Whitesboro, helped by two-run singles by Brilbeck and Gillianne McCarthy, but the Warriors countered with six unanswered runs. Brilbeck singled in a run in the sixth to cut the 6-4 deficit in half, but Whitesboro got the final outs.
