CENTRAL NEW YORK – It took 14 games and yet another foray into extra innings, but someone finally got the best of the Bishop Ludden baseball team.
The Gaelic Knights’ win streak ended last Monday in a 4-3, eight-inning defeat to Tully, who jumped out early, stayed calm when Ludden rallied and then got the hit it needed to pull it out.
Ludden was playing its sixth game in seven days, having won the first five but having to go 11 innings against then-unbeaten Pulaski and eight innings with Bishop Grimes on May 4.
Despite giving up two runs in the first inning and another run in the second, Jimmy Westers stayed on the pitcher’s round the rest of the way, accumulating eight strikeouts and only giving up five hits.
The Gaelic Knights tied it, 3-3, by the end of the fourth, Mike Masterpoole and Andrew Pullano earning RBIs, but the Black Knights got four shutout innings in relief from Oscar Breitzka,
including a scoreless eighth after Tully went back in front on Nate Melton’s single in the top of the eighth that plated Willie Lund.
Now that it didn’t have to defend an undefeated mark and could just focus on the rest of the season, Ludden started to do so a day later, rebounding with a 10-4 win over Cato-Meridian.
A 3-0 lead vanished when the Blue Devils scored four times in the top of the fourth off Tim Dunham, but the Gaelic Knights answered with a four-run rally of its own in the bottom of the fourth and never got caught.
Joe Dunham dominated at the plate, his double and two singles leading to five RBIs. Colden Sheen drove in two runs, with Pullano and Masterpole earning three hits apiece as Tim Dunham drove in two run and pitched a complete game, striking out seven.
Then came Thursday’s rematch with Tully, and while it was again a close one, Ludden prevailed 4-2 over the Black Knights to salvage a series split.
Two first-inning runs got the Gaelic Knights in front, but it needed a two-run fifth to account for its winning margin, and Joe Dunham was the central figure.
Dunham pitched a complete game, striking out 11 to overcome four hits and three walks. He also had two hits and scored twice as Masterpole singled twice, walked and earned two RBIs. Pullano scored the other two runs.
West Genesee suffered its own setback last Monday when it took a 3-2 defeat to the same Liverpool side it beat 9-2 on the road just three days earlier.
Single runs by the Warriors in the first, third and fourth innings built up a 3-0 advantage. WG battled back, scoring in the fourth and fifth innings, but Liverpool pitcher Nate Benjamin blanked the Wildcats the rest of the way, overcoming the Wildcats’ nine hits by striking out six.
Then WG fell to Cicero-North Syracuse 9-4 on Thursday at the Gillette Road complex, a game that was 2-2 until the Northstars batted around in the bottom of the fifth and netted six runs, chasing starter Colin Crinnin. The Wildcats had just four hits, one each by Jason Clifton, Luke Alfieri, Zach Elinich and Gerard Shattell.
This skid ended with Saturday’s 4-0 shutout of Whitesboro in a possible playoff preview as Landyn Shaw was close to flawless, limiting the opposition to three hits and two walks while recording eight strikeouts.
A third-inning RBI single by Nick Meluni was all Shaw needed, but Meluni returned in the bottom of the fourth and, with a two-run single, ultimately put Whitesboro away, improving the Wildcats’ overall record to 11-7.
Jordan-Elbridge had its own game with Pulaski last Monday and, despite solid pitching, lost, 5-1, to the Blue Devils, but was able to rebound a day later to beat Mater Dei Academy 9-2 before a narrow 5-4 defeat to Tully on Wednesday afternoon where it led 4-3 after a three-run fifth, only to see the Black Knights score twice in the bottom of the sixth and pull it out.
