SYRACUSE – Every defeat that ends a high school sports season, especially deep into the playoffs, hurts in some way.
What the Baldwinsville baseball team felt, though, at the conclusion of Thursday night’s 2-1, eight-inning loss to West Genesee in the Section III Class AA semifinal at Onondaga Community College was a combination of disappointment mixed with understandable rage.
It had little to do with the Bees surrendering the decisive run in the bottom of the eighth inning on a walk and a pair of well-placed singles, the last of them by Dan Flaherty that scored Luis Suarez and sent the Wildcats to the sectional final against Fayetteville-Manlius.
But it had a whole lot to do with what happened in the top of the eighth.
The two sides were tied 1-1, B’ville having pulled even in the top of the seventh when Logan McIntyre got hit by a pitch, moved to third on a pair of passed balls, and sped home on Josh Leonard’s pinch-hit single.
Now, in this rematch of the 2021 sectional final won by the Bees, it went to extra innings, and with two out in the top of the eighth, the Bees put together another rally.
Griffin Seeber singled. Cam Brennan followed with a single of his own, moving Seeber to second. Then Logan Welch took a Talon Elkins pitch to right field for another base hit.
Seeber sped around third base and headed home. WG’s right fielder, Aidan Leaf threw to the plate, where Jake DePalma caught it and turned around, only to have Seeber slide and touch home with the go-ahead run ahead of DePalma’s tag.
At least that’s what the Bees thought, and what a picture taken of the play at the plate showed, too. But Seeber was called out.
Seeber was stunned. The B’ville fans booed and howled, and sprinting in from his third-base spot, head coach Dave Penafeather carried on a long and loud argument, to no avail. The call stood.
All of this made what happened in the bottom of the eighth more difficult to take. Relief pitcher Aiden Milburn, who had taken over in the sixth after Gavin Miller started, got two quick outs.
However, Suarez coaxed a walk. Moments later, Ryan Klementowski sent a line drive to right field that Matt Carner nearly caught, but trapped, allowing Suarez to race to third. Flaherty then delivered a single up the middle to end it.
Miller started with four shutout innings, limiting WG to just two hits and striking out five, while the Bees got runners on base each of the first four innings against Wildcats starter Wyatt Braun but was unable to convert.
Not until the bottom of the fifth did the 0-0 deadlock get broken, DePalma coaxing a two-out walk and Leaf then sending a triple to the wall to bring DePalma home and give WG a 1-0 advantage.
That only proved the prelude to the seventh and eighth innings, where B’ville restored its chances, only to see them dashed in the most frustrating way possible.
Three nights later, West Genesee lost the sectional final 13-8 to Fayetteville-Manlius, who just like in 2019 was under .500 in the regular season but made an unlikely post-season run that included toppling the top two seeds, WG and Cicero-North Syracuse.
B’ville beat F-M three times this spring.
