ONONDAGA COUNTY – Both in the afternoon and evening of a busy Tuesday, two high-profile teams from Baldwinsville inched close to defending their respective Section III titles.
In boys lacrosse at Cicero-North Syracuse’s Bragman Stadium, B’ville, the top seed, put on another all-around clinic to roar past no. 4 seed Syracuse City 19-2 and earn a berth in Friday’s final against Liverpool.
Syracuse did all it could to slow the game down, but even with that the Bees were able to steadily work its way to a 7-2 halftime advantage.
Then, once Jacob Czyz started dominating face-offs (he won 15 of the 18 he took), the Bees were able to put up 12 unanswered goals in the second half and give its starters some rest.
Ryan Hollenbeck set a new career mark, pouring in eight goals and adding an assist, the passes mostly coming from Keegan Lynch, who had a season-best six assists to go with his two goals.
Carson Dyl scored three times, adding two assists. Ryan Quinn got three assists as Colin Doyle, Judson Ferris, Jameson Gipe, Greg Marinelli, Brayden Penafeather-Stevenson and Trey Ordway had one goal apiece. Anthony Menickelli contributed an assist.
In baseball, the no. 3 seed Bees shut out no. 6 seed Liverpool 3-0, which set up a semifinal against West Genesee that would be a rematch of the 2021 title game that B’ville claimed on its home diamond.
Even with B’ville beating the Warriors three times in the regular season, it did not prove easy as ace Kai Girard was opposed by Liverpool’s Noah Klasen.
They were scoreless until the bottom of the second inning, when B’ville struck for all of its runs off Klasen, one each driven in by Logan McIntyre, Aidan Milburn and Dean Welch.
Klasen, who went five innings, and reliever Aidan Blincoe shut out the Bees the rest of the way and only allowed seven hits, three of them by Braden Seeber.
But the Warriors were silenced at the plate by Girard, who only surrendered singles to Sam Michalak and Jack Hoppe and amassed eight strikeouts without allowing a walk.
