CENTRAL NEW YORK – Any time the Cazenovia baseball team can send Jack Donlin to the mound, it feels like it can hold up against any kind of competition.
Donlin would pitch well again in last Monday’s series opener against Marcellus, giving up just two hits as the Lakers blanked the Mustangs 10-0.
A seven-run fourth inning helped the Lakers end it early due to the mercy rule, but by then Donlin had already accumulated 11 strikeouts in his complete-game stint.
At the plate, Donlin joined Joey Awald and Jake Hightchew in getting two hits apiece as part of an 11-hit attack. Izaak Gilbert, Carter Bowen, Taven Reilley and Dan Bliss earned RBIs to match Awald and Hightchew.
Things turned around a day later when Cazenovia lost, 11-1, to Marcellus, who scored twice in the first inning to go in front before Gilbert settled down and blanked the Mustangs over the next five frames.
Awald singled and scored in the top of the sixth to cut it to 2-1, but Marcellus erupted for nine runs in the bottom of the sixth to get away, led by Ethan Dilmore (three hits), Gavin Foy and Max Chapman (two RBIs apiece).
Still in search of its first win of the season, Chittenango tried to get it against Homer last Tuesday afternoon, only to take a 5-3 defeat to the Trojans.
In the bottom of the third, the Bears, trailing 1-0, struck for all of its runs, scored by Mason Corlis, Jake Wagner and Drew Thomas as Corlis finished with two of Chittenango’s four hits.
Homer countered with four runs in the top of the fifth, the key blow Tristan Allen’s home run, and never let the Bears answer. Ryan Thousand, Alex Pappas and Reagan Poland each pitched 2 1/3 innings, with Pappas taking the loss.
The second game of the series with Homer resulted in a 7-0 defeat, all of the Trojans’ runs coming in the first and third innings as it chased starter Kyle Peryer.
Thousand and Evan Tianello settled it down in relief, but the Bears got just one hit, by Eli Lefort, off Trojans pitcher Mitchell Earle, who struck out eight.
In Saturday’s action, Chittenango ran into Oswego and took a 19-1 defeat to the Buccaneers, who took charge with an eight-run first inning. Quinton Hilliker had the Bears’ lone RBI, joining Lefort and A.J. Valente in the hit column.
