CENTRAL NEW YORK – When a sixth class was set up for New York State high school sports competition baseball, Christian Brothers Academy got the call up to participate in that new Class AAA alongside the largest schools in the area.
Already, the Brothers have faced many of those sides in regular-season play while still vying for top honors in the Onondaga High School League Liberty division.
A showdown last Monday against Mexico saw CBA get tremendous pitching from Hector Gonzalez and Ben Lovell on the way to beating the Tigers 6-1.
Gonzalez went four innings and allowed two hits, while Lovell did not surrender a hit in his three innings of work, the pair combinng for 14 strikeouts, seven each.
Seven different players had hits at the plate, with only Ethan Harris getting two hits. Gonzlez drove in a run, as did Ryan Petrie, Ben Snyder and Cooper Marko.
CBA followed a day later with a 5-0, six-inning shutout over Chittenango, with Petrie thwarting the Bears by earning 11 strikeouts against five hits and two walks allowed.
Solo home runs by Mike Giamartino and Jack Landau were part of the Brothers’ attack as Giamartino went three-for-three overall and scored twice, while Landau got a pair of hits.
A more lopsided 16-0 romp over Chittenango followed on Thursday, CBA setting the tone with seven runs in the top of the first and more than doubling that margin by the time they reached the fifth.
Eleven different players got at least one hit, with Landau and Petrie both getting two hits and combining to score five runs. Tim Scholl and Tom Menar had two RBIs apiece as Lovell limited the Bears to four hits.
Back on the field Sunday, CBA met its Albany CBA counterparts and, thanks to a fifth-inning scoring eruption, won by an 18-7 margin.
What was a competitive game ended when Syracuse CBA batted around twice in the fifth and put up 14 runs. Giamartino smashed another home run, his third of the season, and got two RBIs as Marko doubled, tripled and drove in three runs. Petrie and Harris also got two RBIs, with Marko nnd Riley Clemons-Butenko each scoring three times.
Fayetteville-Manlius, who will be in Class AA come post-season time, entered the week at 5-2, but was dealt an immediate setback in last Monday’s 10-3 defeat to West Genesee.
They were tied, 1-1, when the visiting Wildcats went ahead for good with three runs in the top of the third. More would follow as WG added three-run rallies in the fifth and seventh innings.
Though it had eight hits (two of them by Steve Wratney), and two RBIs from Brady Moore, F-M could not put together a big rally of its own as Tom Woodridge also drove in a run. Max Werde pitched 4 1/3 innings and took the loss.
Recovering a day later, F-M defeated Syracuse City 6-2, surrendering an early 2-0 advantage but scoring three runs in the top of the fourth to break a 2-2 tie and move ahead for good.
Harrison Schwab struck out nine in four innings before Jimmy Kuss delivered three innings of one-hit relief. Gavin Nicholls led he Hornets at the plate with two singles and two RBIs, while Brian Tonkevich and Nolan Merrow also drove in runs.
A tight game on Thursday saw F-M fall 3-2 to Utica Proctor in eight innings. Tonkevich’s two-run single in the top of the fourth gave the Hornets a 2-0 lead, but the Raiders answered with runs in the fourth and fifth and won it in the eighth.
Woodridge went two-plus innings in relief after Swift limited Proctor to three hits in five innings of work. But F-M managed just five hits of its own, two of them by Jeremy Albert.
At Whitesboro a day later, the Hornets again followed a defeat with a victory, prevailing 7-4 as it jumped out to a 7-0 lead by scoring all of its runs in the first four innings.
Kuss, Merrow and Albert each produced a pair of hits. Woodridge drove in two runs, with Tonkevich adding an RBI as Gavin Nicholls allowed five hits in five innings to pick up the win on the mound.
