CENTRAL NEW YORK – It only figured that Mike Schaefer was on the mound when the Christian Brothers Academy baseball team put away Auburn and earned its first Section III Class A championship in five years.
Schaefer struck out Auburn’s Cooper Polcovich Saturday afternoon at Falcon Park to complete the Brothers’ 2-0 victory over Auburn in the title game, and soon found himself mobbed by his teammates in celebration of a remarkable week of post-season heroics.
In both of its previous playoff games, CBA had pulled it out in the latter stages, each time with key input from Schaefer, and even though the Brothers would lead from the outset against Auburn, it would still need Schaefer to be clutch again.
Wasting no time, CBA struck for both of its runs with two out off Maroons pitcher William Coleman in the top of the first inning thanks to a trio of hits, with Matt Boule and Louie Percival driving in those runs.
Boule also started on the mound and faced immediately trouble in the bottom of the first when Aubun loaded the bases, but Boule escaped it and, over the next four-plus innings, maintained his team’s two-run edge, only allowing three hits.
When Auburn put two men on with one out in the sixth, Schaefer relieved Boule, and promptly coaxed an inning-ending double play. Then Schaefer retired the Maroons in the bottom of the seventh to give CBA the sectional title.
With a 16-4 record and the no. 4 seed, CBA would battle with no. 5 seed New Hartford in the sectional quarterfinals, a game that would ultimately stretch out over two days.
The Brothers appeared to get control when it scored four runs in the bottom of the fifth inning to break a 0-0 deadlock, but the Spartans stormed back with four runs of its own in the seventh to send it to extra frames.
Darkness hit in the ninth with the score still 4-4, and the two sides returned a day later to finish the contest, knowing the winner would get a rested top seed, Cortland, in the semifinals.
Then Schaefer, almost by himself, saved the Brothers’ season. In the top of the 10th, Schaefer was pitching in relief when New Hartford put two runners on base, but Schaefer pitched out of it.
Coming to the plate in the bottom of the 10th, Schaefer then turned on a pitch and drove it over the fence, a walk-off home run that won the game.
Barely 24 hours later, CBA was in Cortland, who had won its first 15 games this season before back-to-back defeats to Auburn. Still, the Purple Tigers earned the no. 1 seed and ousted Oswego 6-4 in the quarterfinals.
Again, CBA found itself in trouble when, heading to the top of the seventh inning, it trailed 3-2. Again, the Brothers would prove its ability to hit in the clutch when it tagged Cortland for four runs in that frame.
Schaefer drove in two of the runs, with Jack Harrigan and Cody Miller also getting RBIs, and though CBA surrendered a run in the bottom of the seventh, it still beat the Purple Tigers 6-4. Two days later, the Brothers were sectional champions.
