ONONDAGA COUNTY – In the two times the Christian Brothers Academy baseball team lined up against Class AA competition, it has not gone well.
The Brothers lost 11-1 to West Genesee for its first defeat of the season on May 15, and two days later took another lopsided loss when it fell 16-0 to Cicero-North Syracuse in five innings.
Four CBA pitchers – Andrew Schaefer, Will Harrigan, Kodi Dotterer and Tom Leskoske – combined to allow 16 hits as Bryce Zicaro and Jake Lukasiewicz led the Northstars with three RBIs apiece.
Glad to be back in OHSL Liberty division play, CBA broke out again in the first of two games against Marcellus, winning 16-5 as Matt Boule scored three runs, with Dotterer, Zach Mulhern and Luke Boule each scoring twice.
The rematch on Thursday was a far different affair, with runs more elusive, but CBA adjusting well and eventually defeating Marcellus 4-1.
A pair of second-inning runs put the Brothers in front 2-0, and it scored twice more in the bottom of the fifth to counter the lone Marcellus tally, when George West drove home Jared Walters.
Matt and Luke Boule led the way, the pair combining for four hits as they drove in three of CBA’s four runs. Casey Vaughn had the other RBI.
But anyone that thought CBA had brushed away its troubles were worried again after Saturday’s 9-3 loss to Homer.
The Trojans struck for three runs in the fourth inning and five runs in the sixth, led by Tanner Douglass, who had a trio of RBIs, and Michael Grant, who drove in two runs. The Brothers fell to 8-3 overall.
Fayetteville-Manlius had gone through a series of close defeats early in its season, and it happened again last Monday as it had a chance late against Liverpool, only to take a 5-4 defeat to the Warriors.
Not until the bottom of the seventh inning did Liverpool pull it out, getting the winning run off Chris Hoalcraft, who had relieved Itai Spinoza.
In six innings, Spinoza struck out seven and only allowed three hits. He also got two hits at the plate, joining Hoalcraft, Connor Wieczorek and Tobey Schulman in the run-scoring column.
When F-M faced Baldwinsville two days later, it lost by that same 5-4 margin, though the game took a different path to that familiar result.
The Bees took a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the third, only to have the Hornets tie it 3-3 in the top of the fourth before B’ville went back in front with single runs in the fourth and fifth.
Now trailing 5-3, F-M cut the deficit in half in the top of the seventh but could not quite tie it, despite Spinoza’s pair of hits and RBIs from Schulman, Wieczorek and Tom Woodridge. Four different pitchers – Woodridge, Seth Bailey, Colin Mott and Max Danaher – saw stints.
