CENTRAL NEW YORK – A great battle is unfolding to see which side ends up with the top seed in the Section III Class AAA baseball playoffs that get underway late next week.
Baldwinsville is a big part of that fight, entering last week with a 9-3 record that it improved with a comprehensive effort last Monday at Fayetteville-Manlius that resulted in a 9-1 victory over the Hornets.
Three-run rallies in the second and third innings put B’ville in control, and the pitching did the rest, Ben Leaton (five innings) and Alex Curry (two innings) holding F-M to four hits while earning eight strikeouts between them.
Jace Albero, with three hits, and Tyler Hawthorne, with three RBIs, led the hitting attack. Anderson Tuten drove in a pair of runs and Jason Oullette added two hits as Albero contributed an RBI.
B’ville took on Rochester McQuaid Wednesday night at Falcon Park in Auburn and, boosted by a big fifth inning, earned an 8-4 victory over the Knights.
A pair of second-inning runs got the Bees in front. McQuaid answered with a run in the third, and it stayed 2-1 until that fifth inning, where B’ville batted around and did not let up until five runs had crossed the plate.
Jacob Penafeather walked twice and scored twice, with RBIs going to Albero, Leaton, Logan McIntyre, Joey Gennario and Nico Wellman. Pitching most of the way, Shane Wellman went five innings, only giving up three hits, while Albero, Luke Revette and Grady Hudson all had succesful relief shifts.
After Friday’s game at 11-1 Jamesville-DeWitt was rained out, it cleared up enough on Saturday for B’ville to host 11-3 Christian Brothers Academy and, on Senior Day, rally for a dramatic 6-5 win over the Brothers.
Six seniors were honored in pregame ceremonies – Oullette, McIntyre, Nico Wellman, Casey Collins, Evan Welch and Alex Curry, as was Drew Olson, the latest inductee into the Baldwinsville Baseball Hall of Fame.
They were part of a special game where the Bees initially rallied from a 2-0 deficit to tie it, 2-2, in the third, and had to come back again after CBA went back in front 5-2 by the fifth inning.
A run in the bottom of the fifth and two more runs in the sixth forged another 5-5 tie, and B’ville won it with a run in the seventh, rewarding Curry, who pitched three scoreless innings of relief after Joey Warner started.
Gennario’s two hits paced a hitting attack where McIntyre had an RBI, as did Hawthorne, Tuten and Albero. Six different players scored the six runs, including Collins.
Having improved to 12-3 overall, B’ville hopes to play four times in the last week of the regular season, starting with two games against reigning sectional Class AA champion Liverpool before a Thursday trip to Gillette Road to face Cicero-North Syracuse and Friday’s rematch with F-M.
