ONONDAGA COUNTY – Three games in a 48-hour span would push the Baldwinsville baseball team and give it a firm idea of how it responded to a tough schedule and even tougher results.
Expected to do well against visiting Cicero-North Syracuse at the start of this pivotal gauntlet last Monday afternoon, the Bees instead were done in by mid-game scoring surges from the Northstars in the course of a 15-0 defeat.
Though only 5-4 going into the game, C-NS hardly blinked against 7-2 B’ville, seeing left-handed pitching ace Kaden Kalfass limit the Bees to two hits in five innings.
By then, the game was long settled. The Northstars broke through with five runs in the top of the third and then add 10 more runs over the course of the next three innings.
Five pitchers for B’ville – Ben Leaton, Grady Hudson, Nico Wellman, Anderson Tuten and Logan Mascari – took turns, none lasting longer than Leaton’s 2 1/3 innings. Mason Mingle and Ben Watkins had two hits apiece for the Northstars, with Hunter Cokran and Kyle Gancarz both driving in a pair of runs.
Without any rest, B’ville visited East Syracuse Minoa a day later and had a far different result, rolling past the Spartans 9-1.
A four-run first inning proved enough, but the Bees added two runs in the fourth and three runs in the seventh, all supporting Joey Warner, who pitched a complete game and limited ESM to four hits.
Jacob Penafeather was responsible for three of B’ville’s seven hits, including a double, and drove in three runs. Leaton added a pair of RBIs and scored twice, with Tuten also getting an RBI.
Then it was a Wednesday trip to Onondaga Community College to again face West Genesee, whom it beat 2-1 at home on April 15, with both teams wearing special warm-up shirts to support mental health awareness thanks to the “Morgan’s Message” program established at WG.
As to the game, again the Bees got the best of the Wildcats, this time in a 7-5 classic that stretched out to 10 innings before B’ville finally pulled it out.
They traded first-inning runs, and it stayed 1-1 for a while, but it appeared that the Bees would settle in in regulation when it scored twice in the fifth and again in the sixth to take a 4-1 lead.
That didn’t hold, though. WG rose up for three runs in the bottom of the sixth and pulled even, 4-4, ultimately sending the game to extra innings, where in the eighth and ninth neither team would convert.
Only in the top of the 10th did the Bees get the three runs it needed to go ahead for good. McIntyre, with a single, double and two RBIs, led the charge, with Penafeather, Joey Gennario and Nico Wellman also driving in runs. Alex Curry pitched five innings, with Jason Ouellette going 4 2/3 innings as Curry only surrendered two hits.
The win improved B’ville’s overall record to 9-3, with four games set for this week. The Bees have difficult tests at Fayetteville-Manlius and Jamesville-DeWitt while, in between, hosting Rochester McQuaid before a Saturday visit from Christian Brothers Academy.
