SYRACUSE – Talon Elkins, Nick Meluni and everyone else on the West Genesee baseball team were beyond ready to put to rest the program’s long, tortured wait for a Section III championship.
Elkins pitched a complete game with 10 strikeouts, and Meluni drove in the go-ahead run in the bottom of the sixth inning to push the Wildcats past Whitesboro 2-1 Sunday at Onondaga Community College, delivering the program’s first sectional title since 1977.
“To be the team that finally does it (win a sectional title) means everything,” said Elkins.
Head coach Kevin Krause had experienced much of what had gone on in Wildcats baseball the last 47 years, and said that this team’s mental approach made the difference.
“I”ve never seen a group calm, cool and energetic before a game,” said Krause. “They didn’t give up on each other.”
It only figured that the last steps taking to this long-awaited title were difficult ones, whether it was last Thursday’s 2-1, eight-inning win over Central Square in the semifinals and a title game that ended up with the same score.
They were tied 1-1 when in the bottom of the sixth Whitesboro pitcher Noah Clausen hit Joe Cavallo with the first pitch of the frame, putting the go-ahead run on base, and Jake Elinich moved Cavallo to second with a sacrifice bunt.
Up stepped Meluni, WG’s leadoff hitter. He said he had just missed getting good contact in his previous at-bat with a run-scoring opportunity, but didn’t miss here, singling up the middle to score Cavallo.
Charged with getting the final three outs, Elkins said he never lost any part of his confidence, and then proceeded to retire Whitesboro in order, striking out J.J. Roberts to end the game.
“Talon was a stud,” said Elkins. “He is phenomenal at everything in the game and he’s a great teammate.”
WG really faced two opponents at once. Whitesboro was the team on the field, but there was also that sectional title drought, made more acute by a series of near-misses in recent years, including some in the Class AA title game.
Immediately, Elkins established his mound presence, picking off Devin Trevisani when he leaned too far off first base after a two-out single in the top of the first, but Whitesboro went in front an inning later when Jordan Hughes tripled and scored on Ryan Charlebois’ single.
They stayed that way until the fourth, when the bottom of WG’s batting order turned the game around.
Luis Garcia singled and stole second. Charlie Searle’s single moved Garcia to third, and a wild pitch brought Garcia home to tie it,1-1, though Clausen stranded two runners by striking out pinch-hitter Ryan Tabaczyk and getting Meluni to ground out.
Elkins got out of a two-on, nobody-out jam in the top of the fifth with a double play and strikeout of Cullen Sheridan. Then Clausen loaded the bases with two out in the bottom of the fifth, only to have Searle hit into a force play.
An inning later, though, Meluni, with a second chance to get WG in front, capitalized. And a few minutes later, the pain of a long wait for a championship had finally gone away, for present and past Wildcats players and all of their fans, too.
The Wildcats will face Section II champion Bethlehem this Saturday at Dutchman Park in Guilderland with a berth in the June 7-8 state final four in the Binghamton area at stake.
