ONONDAGA COUNTY – If all went as scheduled and the weather held up, the Christian Brothers Academy baseball team would play seven times in an eight-day span leading up to the Section III Class A playoffs.
That stretch began on May 27, with the Brothers going to Skaneateles and striking early in a 5-2 victory over the reigning sectional Class B champion Lakers.
Three first-inning runs were all that was needed, though it also scored in the second and fourth as Jack Harrigan and Mike Schaefer both got a pair of hits, with Luke Boule, Will Harrigan and Cody Miller getting RBIs. Schaefer pitched 5 1/3 innings to earn the win before Boule and Casey Vaughn closed it out in relief.
In a May 29 doubleheader against Liverpool, CBA won the opener 2-0 on Matt Boule’s complete-game shutout as he only allowed three hits. Single runs in the third and fourth inning proved enough as Harrigan and Louie Percival earned the RBIs
The second game saw CBA pull it out 6-5 over the Warriors, despite a three-run Liverpool rally in the seventh. Zach Mulhern drove in a pair of runs as Matt Boule scored twice, with Jack Harrigan adding an RBI.
CBA then improved to 12-3 last Monday against Fayetteville-Manlius, once again keeping the opposition off the scoreboard in a 2-0 shutout of the Hornets.
A pair of first-inning runs, scored by Percival and Matt Boule, held up the rest of the way. Three pitchers – Vaughn, Schaefer and Luke Boule – combined to limit F-M to three hits.
Once again, though, the Brothers were turned back, this time in the rematch with Skaneateles, who handled the Brothers 10-3 last Tuesday in advance of Wednesday’s game against Class AA power Baldwinsville.
Striking for five runs in the fifth inning and five more runs in the seventh, CBA broke open a close game and blasted past the Bees 11-1, with everyone in the Brothers’ lineup getting at least one hit.
Leading the way, Matt Boule not only pitched a complete game, he went four-for-four at the plate and joined Luke Boule with three RBIs apiece. Miller, Harrigan, Percival and Zach Mulhern drove in single runs.
Not letting up, CBA won again on Thursday, handling Westhill 9-2 to complete a season sweep of those Warriors and finish with an overall record of 16-4.
Between them, Schaefer, Vaughn and Luke Boule limited Westhill to four hits. At the plate, Boule went three-for-three, scoring three times and getting two RBIs as Schaefer, Miller, Mulhern, Percival, Matt Boule and Jack Harrigan all drove in runs, too.
As for F-M, it would play twice late in the week against West Genesee, trying to deny the red-hot Wildcats the SCAC Metro division regular-season title after it lost 6-1 to Baldwinsville on the first day of June.
The first game didn’t go well, with the Hornets blasted 22-4 by WG, and it fell 12-4 in the rematch a day later when the Wildcats scored 11 runs in the first three innings, including home runs by Ryan Klementowski and Luis Suarez. Robert Mason and Ito Spinoza still had two RBIs apiece.
F-M would then take a 10-3 defeat to Liverpool last Saturday afternoon, the Warriors able to snare a berth in the sectional Class AA playoffs that the Hornets claimed for the first time two years ago.
While F-M would watch someone else claim the AA sectional crown, CBA, in Class A, drew the no. 4 seed in a 10-team bracket. The Brothers host no. 5 seed New Hartford in Tuesday’s quarterfinals.
