CENTRAL NEW YORK – When all was settled from a trio of Section III baseball semifinal games on a spring Saturday afternoon, only Westhill remained alive.
In the Class B semifinals at Onondaga Community College, the no. 3 seed Warriors, by far the highest remaining seed in the bracket, rained down runs on Vernon-Verona-Sherrill after the rains stopped, ultimately defeating the Red Devils 16-1.
Marcellus wanted to join Westhill in Monday’s title game, only to get turned back in a tense 4-3 semifinal by Cazenovia where it surrendered three runs in the first inning and was never quite able to catch up.
Already in the sectional tournament, the no. 12 seed Mustangs had gone on the road to knock off no. 5 seed Holland Patent and no. 4 seed Homer. Now it faced a no. 8 seed Cazenovia side that had upended top seed South Jefferson in the previous round.
Both pitchers – John Francesconi for Marcellus, Jack Byrnes for Cazenovia – were operating on three days’ rest. But it was the Lakers getting the jump in the bottom of the first as, with two on and nobody out, Jack Donlin singled and an error in right field allowed both runs to score and Donlin to reach third, where he would score on a sacrifice fly.
Marcellus got one back in the top of the third as Adam Sullivan doubled, went to third on a balk and scored on an error. It remained that way until the fifth, when Sullivan singled and, during a pick-off attempt, coaxed a throwing error from Byrnes and sprinted to third, from where he scored on a passed ball.
Cazenovia restored the lead to 4-2 in the bottom of the fifth thanks to Byrnes’ fly-ball double and three ground balls, the last of which Jacob Grevelding beat out which allowed Byrnes to score.
Still down by two in the top of the seventh, Marcellus had one more chance. Sullivan drew a four-pitch walk and then, with two out and Tyler Szalach pitching in relief, a botched grounder allowed Sullivan to score. With the tying run on base, Szalach coaxed Hunter Byrne to fly out to end it.
All of this was a total contrast to what took place in the first semifinal. Westhill, having survived a tense 3-2 quarterfinal with Skaneateles, now met a VVS team that had made a surprising run from a no. 18 seed, but had just gone through a two-day, 10-inning, 14-12 marathon with Solvay just to get this far.
Knowing all this, the Warriors jumped on the Red Devils with four runs in the bottom of the first, and not even a rain delay could stop things as Westhill, already with a run home in the bottom of the second, tacked on nine more runs to make it 14-1.
Cruising from there, Westhill saw Aiden Kerr and Tyler Campbell each get three hits and score three runs. Geoff Daniul had a team-best three RBIs as Dom Zawadzki and Anthony Sampo drove in two runs apiece.
Bishop Luddenhad pulled off its own big upset in the Class C sectional quarterfinals when it knocked off no. 2 seed Beaver River on May 26. But it didn’t carry over into Saturday’s semifinal at Utica’s Murnane Field, where the Gaelic Knights lost, 6-1, to Adirondack.
Having eliminated no. 3 seed Pulaski a round earlier, the Wildcats jumped on Ludden starting pitcher Peter Dunahm for three runs in the top of the third, adding a run in the fourth to make it 4-0.
Tim Dunham reached base and scored in the bottom of the fifth, but Adirondack tacked on a pair of insurance runs in the seventh. Wildcats pitcher Maxim Weller went six innings and held the Gaelic Knights to one hit, striking out six. Ludden’s season ended with a record of 11-11.
