CENTRAL NEW YORK – Having gone 3-1 in an impressive showing during its spring-break trip to Myrtle Beach, the Cazenovia baseball team now turned its attention to facing the tough slate within the OHSL Liberty division.
And the Lakers’ production continued last Tuesday in a 15-8 win over Hannibal in the league opener, a game where it netted multiple runs in each of the first four innings.
It took a six-run third for Cazenovia, who trailed 4-3 through one, to get control, with Jack Donlin and Jack Byrnes each smashing home runs as Donlin also doubled twice and amassed five RBIs.
Byrnes, who pitched four innings before Cy Abbott took over in relief, scored four times and drove in two runs, as did Joey Awald, Dan Bliss, Jacob Grevelding and Izaak Gilbert had one RBI apiece.
Impressive as this was, Cazenovia was even better in Thursday’s game at Marcellus, needing just five innings to get the runs needed to finish off the Mustangs 15-2.
Seven runs in the first three innings was followed by an eight-run third as Byrnes homered for the second consecutive game, adding a walk and single and driving in three runs overall.
Stepping up, Jacob Cox and Nico Segall also had three RBIs, with Donlin driving in two runs as he pitched and accumulated 10 strikeouts while surrendering four hits.
As for Chittenango, who had split its first two games of the season, wins proved a bit more elusive as it met Mexico last Monday afternoon and lost 9-5 to the Tigers.
Thanks to RBIs from Ben Welch, Carlos Torres-Carman and Drew Thomas, the Bears had a 3-1 lead through two innings and answered with two runs in the third after Mexico went in front.
However, the Tigers broke out of that 5-5 tie with a run in the fifth and three runs in the sixth. Kyle Peryer pitched 4 2/3 innings and got the loss. Evan Lenhart led Mexico with three hits and three RBIs.
So began a stretch of four games where, facing Solvay a day later, Chittenango had two different leads but could not hold either of them and lost, 8-5, to the Bearcats.
Four first-inning runs had Chittenango in early control. Solvay tied it, 5-5, only to have the Bears strike for a run in the third and two more in the fifth.
Solvay came back again, tying it 8-8 in the bottom of the fifth and pushing across the winning run two innings later, negating a two-hit, two-RBI effort from Thomas as Andrew Kielbasa, Mason Korlis and Cooper Smith had one RBI apiece, Smith and Zailor Caras both scoring twice.
A rematch with Mexico on Friday went quite different than the first one, with the Bears scoring five runs in the second inning and nine runs in the third on the way to a 17-0 shutout. Then Chittenango played Saturday against Oneida and rolled to a 13-2 victory, improving its overall record to 3-3.
