ONONDAGA COUNTY – There are different ways to characterize the Baldwinsville softball team relative to its two main rivals, Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse.
Through recent results (especially last year’s Section III Class AA final), the Bees have, for now, gained the upper hand with the Warriors, while the Northstars have turned into a nemesis this spring.
Having already knocked off B’ville 3-0 back in April, C-NS did it again last Tuesday at the Gillette Road complex, going to eight innings to top the state Class AAA no. 20-ranked Bees 3-2.
Pitchers ruled most of the way, Bella Hotchkiss matching Northstars sophomore Kiyara Bentley through regulation and only giving up Aubrey Coyle’s fourth-inning RBI single that scored Sydney Puttkamer.
Down 1-0 nd three outs from defeat, the Bees came through and tied it in the top of the seventh, taking it to extra frames, where in the eighth it pushed across another run for a 2-1 lead, Marissa McCloud scoring on a Hotchkiss single and delivering her own RBI that brought home Maddy Gulich.
Hotchkiss could not get the final three outs, though, allowing Sydney Rockwell and Eva Farone to reach base and Coyle double both of them home to win it.
All of this turned around Thursday at Liverpool, the first time B’ville had faced the Warriors since that 2023 sectional final and the Bees relying on all the facets of its game to prevail 6-1.
Several factors proved important in this outcome, beginning in the bottom of the first when Mackenzie Frani singled home Maya Mills to put Liverpool up 1-0, but Hotchkiss worked her way out of it.
Then, after no. 9 hitter Bella Amato’s RBI single tied it 1-1 in the second, the game stayed that way until the fifth, when an outfield error led to two Bees runs, both driven home on Layla Trendowski’s bloop single.
Aggressive baserunning put two B’ville players in scoring position in the top of the sixth, and both would get home thanks to singles from McCloud and Jenna Martin, a third run getting home on a wild pitch.
Meanwhile, Trendowski, Amato and Julianna Gingrich all made fine catches on defense to help Hotchkiss, who blanked Liverpool over the last six innings and allowed just three hits overall, striking out six.
Armed with confidence and momentum, B’ville returned home Saturday and, on Senior Day, had one of its best wins of the season so far, shutting out state Class A no. 16-ranked Chittenango 4-0.
Six seniors that helped end the Bees’ long wait for a sectional title were honored before the game, including Hotchkiss, Trendowski, Gulich, Jenna DiLiberto, Leah VerSchneider and Brooke Nicholson. Then they all went to work against a Chittenango side that not only had a 10-1 record, but had won nine of those games scoring 13 or more runs.
Combined, Hotchkiss (four innings) and DiLiberto (three innings) shut the Bears down, striking out 11 between them and limiting Chittenango to six hits, none of them coming home.
B’ville got two runs in the bottom of the first off Bears pitcher Caroline Porter, adding single runs in the third and fifth innings, each of them scored by Trendowski, who had two hits and a walk. Gingrich also had two hits and produced a pair of RBIs as VerSchneider brought Trendowski home on an RBI double.
The Bees’ rematch with Liverpool next Tuesday precedes games later in the week at West Genesee and Rome Free Academy to close out the regular season.
