Wherever they started, the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool baseball teams want to end up in the same place late in May – battling for a Section III Class AA championship.
The two rivals won’t meet each other on the diamond until back-to-back games May 8 and 9, and plenty will happen before that point, including two extended road trips which got the season underway.
For the Northstars, it meant going to the Ripken Baseball Spring Training facility near Washington, D.C., for a pair of games against local opponents.
In the first of them last Thursday afternoon, C-NS prevailed 5-2 over Herndon (Maryland), exchanging first-inning runs before striking three times in the top of the fourth to go ahead for good.
Bryce Zicaro pitched six solid innings, overcoming five hits and five walks to strike out eight before Battista Wood worked the seventh inning in relief.
Lucas Crystal drove in a pair of runs as C-NS managed those five runs despite just three hits, one each by Crystal, Zicaro and Andrew Davis.
A day later, the Northstars lost 13-1 to Eastern, from the D.C. area, most of the damage done in an 11-run third inning. Carter King drove in Chris Williams with C-NS’s lone run in the top of the sixth.
Meanwhile, Liverpool was at a different Ripken Experience tournament in South Carolina, all of their games taking place within a 48-hour span on the weekend.
It began with a Friday doubleheader where the Warriors took a narrow 7-6 defeat to Pleasure Ridge Park (Kentucky), a game where it erased a 2-1 deficit with three runs in the third and two runs in the fourth.
Yet that 6-2 lead did not hold, Pleasure Ridge using a run in the fifth and two-run rallies in the sixth and seventh to catch up and overtake Liverpool.
Alex Evans, in defeat, had a single, double, triple and two RBIs. Jack Hoppe and Tyler Vivacqua each drove in a pair of runs, too, as Nate Benjamin scored twice.
Rebounding well, Liverpool beat Van Buren 15-1 later that day, Benjamin earning a single, triple and four RBIs. Hoppe and Austin Burch both drove in two runs, with Chris Baker adding a single, double and three runs scored.
