CENTRAL NEW YORK – Off for more than a week, the Jamesville-DeWitt softball team reentered the fray well-rested and ready to unleash itself on a string of high-quality opponents.
No game was more important than Thursday’s showdown between J-D and its neighbors from East Syracuse Minoa. Once again, though, the Red Rams got the best of it, prevailing 9-2 over the Spartans.
Back on Tuesday, J-D roared past Syracuse City 25-1 in its first game in 10 days, the contest serving as a warm-up of sorts before the battle with the Spartans.
Kayla McQuaid and Amanda Aitken led the way, scoring nine runs between them as they got three hits apiece. Kaira McMahon drove in a team-best three runs as Aitken, Addison Buffs, Stella White and Savannah Schnorr finished with two RBIs apiece.
Before all this, ESM was on the field last Monday against Central Square, where it prevailed 11-4 over the Redhawks.
Three runs in the early innings put the Spartans in front, but it got away with four runs in both the fourth and fifth innings as pitcher Olivia Goff threw a complete game.
Brooke Kirkpatrick scored three runs as she, along with Sara Brefka and Addison Adames each had two RBIs. Mya Quonce also had a pair of hits and scored twice as Goff contributed an RBI.
In a far closer game against Oswego 24 hours later, the Spartans rallied to beat the Buccaneers 5-4, giving up all of its runs in the second inning.
Down 4-1, ESM put up a run in the third and fifth innings to move within one. Then, in the top of the seventh, it got to Oswego pitcher Maria Sweet for the tying and go-ahead runs before Goff earned the final three outs.
Christian Brothers Academy was competitive against Chittenango last Tuesday, but lost 8-6 to the Bears, who rebounded from its first loss of the season April 22 to Fayetteville-Manlius.
Nearly erasing a 7-0 deficit, the Brothers got five runs in the fifth inning and another in the seventh, Avery Bowman earning a pair of RBIs as Juliette Zimmerman and Maricatherine Giamartino also drove in runs.
CBA then won Thursday over Skaneateles 13-6 in a game that completely belonged to Zimmerman.
All that Zimmerman did at the plate was drill two balls over the fence for home runs, add two doubles and a single and, by game’s end, had picked up a school-record eight RBIs.
Help came from Bowman, Hannah Reilly and Madisyn Crysler, who had two hits apiece, as RBIs wnet to Aubrey Vinceinti, Allison Boule and Giana Anderson.
For its part, F-M challenged Baldwinsville last Tuesday and lost, 7-1, to the Bees, who kept the Hornets off the board until the seventh inning as Leah VerSchneider led B’ville with two hits and two RBIs.
Then came a 4-2 defeat to Cicero-North Syracuse on Thursday where, tied 1-1 in the bottom of the sixth, the Hornets watched the Northstars net three decisive runs and could not quite answer it.
