AUBURN – Even though it was armed with the top seed in the Section III Class AAA playoffs the Baldwinsville baseball team was not protected in any way from the most difficult path to a championship possible.
Get past no. 4 seed Cicero-North Syracuse in last Friday’s sectional semifinal at Auburn’s Falcon Park, and the reigning champions from Christian Brothers Academy awaited in the finals.
B’ville was turned back, and it was C-NS accomplishing this, fighting past the Bees 5-3 mostly on the back of its high-quality bullpen.
Two regular-season games between these teams were split, the Bees dropping the opener in another 5-3 decision on April 28 but edging the Northstars 3-2 two nights later at Onondaga Community College.
Ben Leaton pitched in the first of those games and started here, too, quickly getting in trouble when C-NS tagged him for a pair of runs in the top of the first inning.
That 2-0 deficit was erased in the bottom of the fourth when the Bees chased Northsstars starter Lucas Aiello and scored three times to go in front. Tyler Hawthorne, Joey Gennario and Kian Scullion drove in those runs.
Yet CNS quickly answered in the fifth, tying it and then getting the go-ahead runs after Jack Rider relieved Leaton. Shacory Williams, Chris Williams, Jeremy Palmer and Kevin Gunnip all had RBIs for the Northstars.
More importantly, the duo of Palmer and Cook would shut out B’ville over the last three innings, preventing any kind of B”ville comeback.
Finishing with a 14-4 mark, B’ville could take a little solace knowing that C-NS, with Palmer throwing five scoreless innings of relief, topped defending champion CBA 5-2 in eight innings in the sectional final Sunday night at Onondaga Community College.
