Just five teams made it to the softball Section III Class AA playoffs, though regardless of the number or sides involved, the path to a championship involved trying to upend Cicero-North Syracuse.
And it was Baldwinsville that would earn the right to topple the Northstars in the championship game, though it didn’t prove easy for the Bees to get there.
In fact, no. 2 seed B’ville trailed no. 3 seed Syracuse late in Saturday’s sectional semifinal at Carrier Park, but woke up just in time to deliver the runs needed for an 8-3 victory.
The Syracuse program, a combination of the city’s high schools, had struggled for a long time before 2019, when it went 10-4 in the regular season and contended within the Salt City Athletic Conference Empire division.
Proving that this mark wasn’t a fluke, Syracuse didn’t get fazed when Mattison Phinney’s RBI groundout in the bottom of the first inning put the Bees in front 1-0 and Kayla Young made that slim margin hold early.
In the top of the fifth, Syracuse got to Young, tying it 1-1 on Alyssa Mann’s RBI triple, then going in front when Young and her relief replacement, Taylor Tripodi, both threw wild pitches with runners on third, allowing them to score.
Now it was B’ville’s turn to rally. With two outs in the bottom of the fifth and trailing 3-1, the Bees got an RBI single from Alyssa Dybacz before a pair of Syracuse errors brought the tying run home.
So it was 3-3 going to the bottom of the sixth, when Syracuse’s defense again made a crucial error, which put Phinney on third, and Phinney scored the go-ahead run on Madison Ascioti’s single.
Kaycee Hawk followed with an RBI single of her own to make it 5-3. Then, in order, Young doubled, Dybacz singled and Emma Johnson also singled, each of them bringing home three more B’ville runs.
Tripodi kept Syracuse off the board in her last two innings of work, and B’ville advanced to the sectional final against a C-NS team it beat 14-8 the last time they met early in May.
Of course, the Northstars remembered that defeat and were bent on avenging it. First, though, it had to get past Fayetteville-Manlius in its sectional semifinal at Carrier Park – which it did 15-0 in just five innings.
Having not played in a week, the Northstars only managed a single run in the first two innings on Brandi Feeney’s single that scored Giana Wameling, but big numbers followed.
Ten batters came to the plate in the bottom of the third and five runs scored, C-NS patiently wearing down F-M pitcher Paige Murphy as Ally Cifaratta’s two-run double was the big blow.
Seven more runs followed in the fourth inning and two runs in the fifth ended it due to the mercy rule as Cifaratta went three-for-three with three runs scored and three RBIs, while no. 9 hitter Jenna Imbesi had three hits and drove in four runs.
Feeney and Alana Harbaugh also had three-hit outings, Harbaugh contributing a triple and two RBIs. Jordyn Maldonado drove in two runs, with Wameling and Brooke Nicolaos getting one RBI apiece as Arianna Corasaniti held the Hornets to three hits.
