Things have not proven easy for the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool softball teams early in the 2025 season for reasons which go beyond the usual weather issues which can alter plans in April.
The Northstars gave up double-digit run totals both in its season-opening 19-12 win at Camden and, at the outset of play at the Ripken Experience in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, fell 10-8 to Section I’s Yorktown.
Against Yorktown, three different times C-NS had leads, up 3-0 through two innings, 5-3 through five innings and 8-7 through six innings. Every time Yorktown rallied, with its three-run outburst in the top of the seventh not answered.
Marissa Leone had a big day at the plate with a home run, single and five RBIs. Erica Hibbard singled, doubled and drove in two runs, with Mia Farone adding an RBI as Paige Pangaro and Payton Bach joined Leone and Hibbard with two hits apiece.
C-NS rebounded last Tuesday to defeat Chesterfield (South Carolina) 11-2 a day later, a game that was tied 2-2 until the Northstars scored twice in the fifth inning and broke it open with six runs in the top of the sixth.
Aubrey Coyle homered, added a double and drove in four runs. Leone added two RBIs and Farone also drove in a run, while Sydney Rockwell was three-for-three with a double and scored three runs. Pitcher Kiyara Bembry blanked Chesterfield after the first inning and only allowed five hits overall.
While it snowed back home, C-NS was on the field again last Wednesday and earning a 7-3 victory over Oak Glen, another local South Carolina opponent.
Though an early 2-0 lead got away the Northstars used three runs in the top of the fourth to go in front for good, adding a pair of seventh-inning insurance runs as Bembry struck out six in her complete-game effort.
C-NS banged out 12 hits against Oak Glen from 10 different players in its lineup. Leone and Pangaro led with two hits apiece as Leone singled, doubled and drove in two runs. Coyle got a triple and two RBIs, with single runs driven in by Pangaro, Shelby Kippen, Megan Meives and Paige Weckesser.
Back in Central New York, Liverpool just looked for any kind of momentum following an 0-2 start, and finally got it from last Thursday’s SCAC Metro Division opener when a big late-game comeback produced a 3-2 victory over West Genesee.
Having not scored a run all week, the Warriors trailed 2-0 going into the bottom of the sixth inning, contained by Wildcats pitcher Lorelai Leskoske, who kept escaping trouble throughout the early stagews.
Then Liverpool got two runners on base in the sixth, and Alivia Henty-Goldberg’s single cut the deficit to one before Erica Ryan, with two on, delivered a clutch double which brought home the tying and go-ahead runs.
Lexi Goodfellow then worked a scoreless seventh inning for the win, having limited a potent WG lineup to single runs in the third and fifth innings and four hits overall while accumulating 12 strikeouts.
All of this followed a 3-0 defeat to Chittenango last Monday where all the Warriors could manage was four hits off Bears pitcher Lauren Machan, who struck out nine.
Emily Nestor had two of those hits, a single and double, the other hits going to Maya Mills and Liliana Salamida. Goodfellow pitched well,. but Chittenango used a run in the fourth inning to get in the front and two more in the sixth for a cushion, all drove in by Makenna Palko through a double and single.