CENTRAL NEW YORK – Going into the final week of the regular season, the Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse baseball teams sport strong records but still have the capability of changing their eventual playoff seeding.
Of particular delight for the Warriors was the way it turned things around against West Genesee, grinding out a 3-2 win over the Warriors in Camillus just three days after falling to them 9-2 at home.
Single runs in the first, third and fourth innings built up a 3-0 advantage. WG battled back, scoring in the fourth and fifth innings, but Nate Benjamin blanked the Wildcats the rest of the way, overcoming nine hits and two walks by striking out six while scoring twice and adding an RBI at the plate. Sam Benzinger scored the other run.
Good as this was, it didn’t even carry over for 24 hours as, going to Fayetteville-Manlius a day later, the Warriors were upended 12-2 by the Hornets.
Dylan Wiggins pitched, going 3 1/3 innings. F-M got a 3-0 lead on him and then lit up Liverpool’s relievers for four runs in the fourth and five runs in the sixth to pull away. Benjamin and Anthony Testone both got RBIs as Anthony Giuffrida led the Hornets with three RBIs.
But Liverpool returned home Thursday and, in the rematch with F-M, won it 7-1, with Tyler Vivacqua surrendering a first-inning run but then blanking the Hornets the rest of the way, striking out eight in his complete-game three-hitter.
Three runs in the second put the Warriors ahead for good and it added three more runs in the next two innings. Jameson Stevens had two hits as he joined Vivacqua, Nate Benjamin and Chris Baker in the RBI column.
C-NS, meanwhile, started out its week on a strong note against a pair of SCAC Empire division foes, going to Central Square last Monday and won 9-2, pitching ace Kaden Kalfass striking out 14 and limiting the Redhawks to three hits.
A five-run second inning was all the Northstars needed, though it added three runs in the third as Mason Mingle and Shacory Williams had two RBIs apiece, with Carter King, Andrew Davis, Kyle Gancarz and Battista Wood also driving in runs.
What followed, a day later, against Oswego was a case of C-NS using one big inning to carry itself through the rest of the game on the way to defeating the Buccaneers 14-9.
Up 1-0 going to the bottom of the second, C-NS erupted for 10 runs in that frame, and then reinforced that work with a three-run fourth inning even as Oswego made up half the ground.
Davis led the way with a single, double, triple and four RBIs. Jaden Zimmer, Kenton Cochran and Jeremy Palmer drove in two runs apiece, with Zimmer scoring three times as Mingle, Gancarz, Williams and Ben Watkins also drove in runs.
Then C-NS had its own game with West Genesee on Thursday and prevailed 9-4, breaking out of a 2-2 tie when it plated six runs in the bottom of the fifth off Wildcats starter Colin Crinnin.
Watkins and Cochran both got a pair of RBIs, while Mingle was three-for-three with two runs scored. Davis added two hits and two runs scored as Justin Coyne pitched well, limiting WG to four hits in his complete-game effort.
