CENTRAL NEW YORK – Having won 10 in a row, the Christian Brothers Academy baseball team put it on the line at home last Monday against 12-1 West Genesee in what could amount to a Section III Class AA championship game preview.
If that’s the case, then the Brothers will be hungry for it, because the Wildcats handed CBA its first defeat of the season last Monday in a 6-4 decision.
WG jumped on Brothers starting pitcher Casey Vaughn for three runs in the top of the first inning, only to have CBA score three in the bottom of the first and chase Wildcats starter Landyn Shaw.
However, Jason Clifton blanked the Brothers over the next three innings while WG put across a run in the fourth and two runs in the fifth to take a 6-3 lead.
Jack Landau’s long solo home run in the fifth cut the margin to two, but the Brothers managed just one hit in the last two innings off Wildcats reliever Charlie Searle.
A day before playing WG, the Brothers had run the win streak to 10 win in a tense 2-1 decision over Rochester McQuaid, falling behind the Knights1-0 in the first inning before coming back.
A run in the third tied it and a run in the fifth proved decisive, Landay going three-for-three with an RBI and run scored in support of Luke Boule, who pitched a complete game, striking out nine and only allowing four hits.
Then, after it lost to West Genesee, it went to Cazenovia a day later and found itself on the other end of a 1-0 loss where Lakers star Jack Byrnes pitched a no-hitter.
Byrnes recorded 10 strikeouts while overcoming two walks and twice hitting Mike Giamartino. But it remained 0-0, through four innings, Ryan Petrie keeping Cazenovia off the board.
Then, in the bottom of the fifth, Byrnes singled moved to second and then raced home when Sully Clarke singled. Though Teddy Meade relived Petrie and blanked the Lakers the rest of the way, Byrnes got the last six outs.
All of the frustration of these two games got taken out CBA in a 24-0 romp over Hannibal on Thursday highlighted a b a first-ever home runfrom Gerald Vielhauer that turned out to be a grand slam.
Vielhauer also singled and finished with six RBIs as the Brothers had a 13-run second inning. Petrie and Joe Dotterer had three RBIs apiece, with Tom Leskoske, Cooper Marko and Hector Gonzalez each driving in a pair of runs.
On Saturday, CBA played a doubleheader against Liverpool, losing the first game 9-3 but taking the second game 20-5 with a power blitz that included home runs by Landau and Zach Mulhern. Boule pitched and earned the win.
Meanwhile, the defending sectional champions from Fayetteville-Manlius continued to climb, toppling Baldwinsville 8-4 last Monday in large part due to a seven-run outburst in the bottom of the third.
Nolan Merrow tripled and got two RBIs as Anthony Giuffrida singled, doubled and drove in three runs. Steve Wratney added an RBI as Seth Albert (3 2/3 innings) and Dan Swift (3 1/3 innings) combined to hold the Bees to five hits.
Then, going to B’ville a day later, the Hornets struck for six runs in the top of the first inning, all but settling matters early as it went on the blast the Bees 9-0
Max Danaher didn’t need much help, pitching 5 1/3 innings and only allowing two hits while striking out seven. That six-run first was aided by poor defense (B’ville committed four errors), but Merrow and Sam Kuss got two hits apiece as they joined Danaher and Giuffrida in the RBI column.
Only on Thursday did the win streak end, F-M falling to Cicero-North Syracuse 3-2. Michael Dutch and Gavin Nicholls drove in runs in the first two innings, but that 2-0 lead didn’t hold.
The Northstars got a run in the fifth and then won it with two runs in the seventh off Albert, the third pitcher of the day as Nicholls had started and gone 4 1/3 innings, only allowing three hits.
F-M was also defeated in both ends of a Saturday doubleheader against Section II teams, falling 17-1 to Bethlehem and 8-4 to Saratoga Springs.
