ONONDAGA COUNTY – Any sense of nostalgia felt by Baldwinsville baseball fans to the famed Field 5 where so many great players displayed their skills through the decades was tempered by the fact that, one more time, weather got in the way.
Yet it didn’t keep the Bees from ultimately earning a tough 3-2, eight-inning victory over Liverpool that would ultimately lead to a sweep of the Warriors that proved quite valuable in the long term, too.
Liverpool, the reigning sectional Class AA champions, arrived last Monday, and it was 0-0 when, in the bottom of the third, B’ville scratched across a run against Warriors pitcher Nate Benjamin.
Ben Leaton maintained the shutout until the top of the fifth, when Anthony Testone and Colin Avery reached base for Liverpool and Benjamin drove both of them home to give his side a 2-1 lead.
The Bees tied it, 2-2, in the bottom of the fifth, and that’s where it was when, with a Liverpool runner on second in the top of the sixth, the rains forced the game to be halted and resumed a day later.
Jason Oullette, relieving Leaton got out of the jam, and it stayed even through the sixth and seventh innings, too, Liverpool’s Dylan Wiggins pitching effective relief to match Oullette.
Liverpool was held off the board again in the top of the eighth. Then, in the bottom of the eighth, Joey Gennario drew a two-out walk off Wiggins, and when Leaton doubled, pinch-runner Gavin Seeber, running with the pitch, raced all the way home to end it.
Now the two sides hoped the rain held off again for a Wednesday rematch – but it did not, the game moved to Saturday’s regular-season finale at Liverpool.
Again, though, the Bees came out on top, beating the Warriors 9-4 to take a 14-5 record into the Section III Class AAA playoffs and making up for two defeats that came right before it
All the runs B’ville needed came in the first two innings when it built a 5-0 advantage. More would follow as Leaton, Seeber and Jacob Penafeather had two hits apiece, Jace Albero scoring twice and joning Leaton with a pair of RBIs.
Given all that early run support, Shane Wellman pitched five solid innings to earn the win, overcoming six walks to give up just three hits before relief stints from Alex Curry and Nico Wellman.
In a Thursday battle with Cicero-North Syracuse, the Northstars prevailed over the Bees just as it did on April 29, even if the 6-3 margin did not resemble the 14-0 romp of the first meeting.
C-NS struck for two runs in the first and third innings. Down 4-0, B’ville closed within one with a three-run fifth where Albero had a two-run single and Tyler Hawthorne drove in the other run.
Yet the Northstars countered with two runs in the bottom of the fifth and Justin Coyne blanked the Bees the rest of the way, only allowing three hits overall. Curry took the loss, with Luke Revette and Matt Hudson seeing relief stints.
Far more lopsided was a 15-6 defeat to Fayetteville-Manlius on Friday afternoon where the Hornets scored multiple runs in five different innings and built an 11-0 advantage at one point.
All of the Bees’ runs came in the sixth and seventh, where Casey Collins doubled twice and got a pair of RBIs. Leaton, Anderson Tuten and Hudson Dziadula also drove in runs as Albero scored twice. F-M’s Nolan Merrow homered as part of a four-for-four outing and Ryan Kleinhans added four hits.
But the win over Liverpool not only secured the league title and a top playoff seed, it gave the Bees a bye directly into the semifinals since the sectional bracket has just seven teams.
Whoever wins Tuesday’s quarterfinal game between no. 5 seed Liverpool and no. 4 seed CBA at Tom Dotterer Field will face B’ville Thursday night at 7 p.m. at Falcon Park in Auburn. A win gets the Bees to Sunday’s 6 p.m. championship game at Onondaga Community College.
