DEWITT – More than 22 months after high school baseball was last seen in Central New York, it arrived again.
And it did so with all kinds of changes, most notably Fayetteville-Manlius having a new head coach in Cory Nelson, a 2007 graduate of F-M who went on to star as a pitcher at Le Moyne College.
Nelson replaced Jason Rutkey, who stepped down after the Hornets’ unlikely sweep of the top three seeds to earn its first-ever Section III Class AA championship in 2019 following an 8-11 regular season.
F-M would not take the field until Monday (weather permitting) against Baldwinsville, but by then Christian Brothers Academy and Jamesville-DeWitt had opened against each other.
The Red Rams, who lost an 11-inning epic to Whitesboro in the 2019 sectional Class A final, found things quite different at the outset of this season as it lost, 10-1, to the Brothers.
CBA only managed seven hits, but took advantage of five J-D errors after the Rams went ahead 1-0 in the bottom of the first. Two runs in the third inning were followed by three-run rallies in the third and fourth innings, plus a two-run seventh.
Mike Schaefer and Cody Miller both got a pair of hits for the Brothers, with Tom Leskoske joining Miller and Nick Harrigan in getting two RBIs apiece.
Leskoske and Schaefer both pitched two innings as part of a three-man CBA effort, with Lucas Boule going the other three innings as the trio combined for 11 strikeouts. J-D’s Matt Sweeney had two hits and scored his team’s lone run.
Bishop Grimes had a rough start to its season on Saturday, running into Cortland and falling to the Purple Tigers 16-3.
Cortland took charge with an eight-run rally in the bottom of the first after the Cobras notched a run in the top of the first and were led by Max Gambitta, who finished with two doubles and five RBIs.
For its part, Grimes got a pair of RBIs from Dominic Rossi as Seth Murphy pitched and took the loss.
