Though one side stayed home and one did not, the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool baseball teams both gained plenty of confidence from their efforts during the April school break.
In the Northstars’ case, it stemmed from the 1-0 victory it earned at West Genesee last Monday afternoon and the 6-0 win it got over Westhill on Saturday, showcases for pitchers Kasey Kalfass and Hunter Cokran.
Kalfass pitched against WG and, over six innings, allowed ust one hit on his way to 13 strikeouts. Yet WG’s Talon Eakins matched him, keeping it 0-0 and only allowing three hits.
Then, with two out in the top of the seventh, the Northstars broke through.
Kenton Cochran reached on an error. Wildcats reliever Charlie Searle hit Mason Mingle. Then Andrew Davis walked to load the bases before Carter King delivered the clutch go-ahead single. Given that one-run margin, relief pitcher Battista Wood got the final three outs for the save.
Five days and three games (two of them losses) later, it was Cokran who got his turn to shine against Westhill, throwing a complete-game three-hitter where he struck out six and only gave up one walk.
C-NS only needed one run, but got three-run rallies in the third and fifth innings. Cochran drove in two runs, with RBIs also going to King, Chris Williams and Shacory Williams.
In between these games were two high-scoring defeats, one of them 11-7 to Christian Brothers Academy where it led 7-0 before the Brothers scored seven runs in the third and then added four more runs in the three innings that followed.
Another of them came Friday, an 11-10 defeat to Rome Free Academy that saw C-NS take a 10-6 lead to the bottom of the seventh, only to be stunned when the Black Knights put up five runs to win it.
As if all that wasn’t enough, there was another game Thursday, C-NS beating Fayetteville-Manlius 7-1 by using five runs in the fifth and sixth innings to break it open. Chris Williams went four-for-four at the plate with three singles and a double. Davis scored three times as pitcher Jeremy Palmer went 6 2/3 innings and held the Hornets to just five hits.
Meanwhile, Liverpool was hundreds of miles away, making its annual trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where it immediately got in a tough game against another Section III opponent, Cazenovia, before pulling out a 7-6 decision.
The Lakers were up 4-1 before Liverpool struck for five runs in the bottom of the fifth. Cazenovia tied it, 6-6, in the top of the sixth, but a run in the bottom of the sixth gave the Warriors the lead for good.
Jameson Stevens, pitching 2 1/3 innings in relief of Chris Baker, got the final outs. Tyler Vivacqua earned three hits as Austin Burch and Dylan Wiggins drove in two runs apiece.
Another local opponent, Watertown, awaited early on Tuesday, and Liverpool beat them 11-7, breaking out of an early 4-4 tie with five runs in the bottom of the third.
Vivacqua tripled, walked twice and finished with four RBIs. Anthony Testone drove in a pair of runs, with Burch scoring three times and joining Dylan Wiggins and Anderson Roden with one RBI apiece.
Later that night, against St. James, Liverpool took its first loss of the season, 2-1, erasing a 1-0 deficit with a run in the top of the sixth before St. James won it an inning later. The Warriors were held to two hits, both by Roden, as Vivacqua scored the lone run and Nate Benjamin pitched well, only surrendering three hits.
Yet another one-run game followed on Wednesday and the Warriors lost again, 5-4, this time to a local Myrtle Beach school called Carolina Forest, who got all of its runs in the top of the fourth off Vivacqua to erase a 3-0 Liverpool lead.
Though Vivacqua blanked the Panthers the rest of the way and finished with nine strikeouts, Liverpool, who closed the gap to one in the bottom of the fourth, was unable to pull even. Burch and Colin Avery had two hits apiece and each finished with an RBI.
The trip ended with Thursday’s 17-9 win over Section IV’s Elmira, which featured multiple runs in five of the first six innings, capped by a five-run sixth. Burch singled, doubled and drove in four runs, with Benjamin scoring four times as Testone earned three RBIs and Vivacqua two RBIs.
