If the Fayetteville-Manlius baseball team felt any deep sadness or regret in the wake of Saturday night’s 6-0 defeat to Shenendehowa in the Class AA regional final at Onondaga Community College, it didn’t last too long.
Just a few minutes after the last out was recorded, Hornets players were smiling, and for good reason. They had already defied all the odds to rise from a sub-.500 regular season and a no. 7 seed to the program’s first-ever Section III title. Anything more was just a bonus.
“I didn’t want this (loss) to be their last memory,” said F-M head coach Jason Rutkey. “They know they’ve accomplished something no F-M team has done before.”
Many Hornets partisans hoped that playing the regional final on the same OCC turf where it turned back Baldwinsville in the sectional final six days earlier would provide some more post-season magic.
But Shenendehowa cared little for sentiment. The Section II powerhouse, in search of a second state title to match the one it earned in 2016, sent right-hander Evan Jones to the mound to oppose F-M left-hander Max Parker.
Having won the sectional semifinal over Cicero-North Syracuse May 30 at Falcon Park in Auburn, Parker started well here, too, keeping the Plainsmen off the board in the first two innings despite surrendering a pair of walks and a single.
Then came the top of the third, when Parker’s control struggles continued as he issued back-to-back walks to Shen’s Chase Carroll and Ben Lavery. Then cleanup hitter Jake Reinisch singled up the middle, scoring Carroll.
An error on Tom Krill’s grounder scored Lavery and put Reinisch on third, and Jones grounded out, which scored Reinisch. With only one hit, the Plainsmen had seized a 3-0 lead.
That was all the offense Jones needed. F-M’s best chance to answer came in the bottom of the third, when with two out Mitchell Seabury singled and Parker reached on a bunt single, only to have Sean O’Connor, who singled earlier, hit into a force play.
From there, the Hornets were kept quiet, Jones ultimately retiring the last 11 batters he faced with a deep repertoire of off-speed pitches that had F-M batters baffled.
“Jones kept us off balance,” said Rutkey. “For us, it was too hard to square up.”
Tom Coleman relieved Parker in the fourth inning and held Shen in check until the seventh, when the Plainsmen got three insurance runs, two of them scoring on Nick Lemire’s single.
The impact of a sectional title went beyond the F-M players themselves. It was symbolized by the JV, modified and Little League players from the community who showed up, in uniform, to see this game, inspired by the Hornets’ unlikely run to a sectional title.
“For them to see us play on this stage means a lot” said Rutkey. “it takes this program forward.”
