ONONDAGA COUNTY – Already this spring, the Christian Brothers Academy baseball team owns victories over two different Class AA opponents, including defending sectional champion Fayetteville-Manlius.
The Brothers added to this resume last Monday against visiting Cicero-North Syracuse, combining a hot bat from Mike Giamartino with strong pitching from Luke Boule and Casey Vaughn to beat the Northstars 6-1.
As part of a three-run first inning off ace Bryce Zicaro and a two-run third, Giamartino belted a home run and added a triple. Finishing with four RBIs overall. Tom Leskoske also drove in a run.
Meanwhile, Boule threw five solid innings, limiting C-NS to four hits and three walks while striking out seven. Vaughn preserved the lead by whiffing five in his two innings of relief.
Three days later, CBA returned to league play and routed Mexico 16-1, with 10 different players scoring runs and 10 different players getting hits.
Peaking with a nine-run rally in the second, the Brothers had Giamartino, Ben Snyder and Teddy Meade get two hits apiece as Ethan Harris drove in three runs. Ryan Petrie joined Giamartino nad Meade in the two-RBI column as Leskoske only allowed three hits in a complete-game pitching effort.
Even more impressive for CBA was what it did on Saturday, meeting a Class AA power in Fairport and managing a big comeback to win that game by a score of 10-7.
Trailing 7-3 going to the bottom of the fourth, the Brothers netted two runs in that frame and then stunned Fairport with a five-run fifth to take the lead for good.
Will Harrigan’s single and double led to three RBIs. Boule, Leskoske and Jack Landau drove in two runs apiece, with Petrie and Hector Gonzalez both scoring twice.
Maybe all that bad weather early last week served Fayetteville-Manlius well, for it allowed more time to absorb the lessons from three consecutive season-opening defeats.
Once back on the diamond last Thursday afternoon, the Hornets got into the win column, prevailing 7-1 over Fulton as the Hornets struck for four runs in the first and two more in the second.
Seth Albert was two-for-three and scored three times, with Max Danaher getting a pair of RBIs. Sam Kuss, Steve Wratney and Eitan Spinoza also drove in runs as Danaher pitched five innings and only allowed two hits before Harrison Schwab worked the last two innings in relief.
A day later, making up a rained-out game with West Genesee, the Hornets were overwhelmed in the first two innings and unable to recover in a 10-7 defeat.
Dan Swift didn’t get out of the second inning as the Wildcats roared to an 8-0 advantage, but the Hornets used a four-run third to cut the margin in half and got three more runs in the seventh to make it closer as Spinoza and Gavin Nicholls had two RBIs apiece. Schwab and Kuss each got a pair of hits.
