CENTRAL NEW YORK – For the first time in the 21st century, the Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse softball teams both go into the Section III playoffs in the challenger’s role, with one quite likely to have a chance to reclaim the crown.
Both had a reason to think they could upend the champions from Baldwinsville, especially the Northstars, who won both of its regular-season meetings against the Bees.
However, the Warriors also got the best of B’ville last Tuesday afternoon, prevailing 2-0 on the road in a rematch of the 6-1 defeat it took to the Bees at home just five days earlier.
The same pitchers were at it again – Mackenzie Frani for Liverpool, Bella Hotchkiss for B’ville – and they were even better than in the first encounter, tossing five scoreless innings apiece.
In particular, Frani dominated, only giving up one hit – a triple to Hotchkiss – and then stranding her on third as part of a performance that included eight strikeouts against two walks allowed.
Hotchkiss struck out 11 and only walked one, but in the top of the sixth Liverpool got to her, with Frani and Joelle Wike both reaching base with singles and then coming around to score. Ava Falvo was the only player on either side with two hits.
Far more prolific when the rain stopped on Thursday, Liverpool unloaded on Fayetteville-Manlius, posting eight runs in the first inning and not letting up until it had 20 hits and had routed the Hornets 22-4.
Falvo led with five hits and scored four runs. Wike went four-for-five as Emily Nestor and Brooke Tyler had three hits apiece. Tyler. Falvo, Maya Mills and Luci Deuel picked up two RBIs apiece.
C-NS was quite good in last Monday’s game at the Gillette Road complex against state Class A no. 15-ranked Chittenango, piling up runs in a 12-4 win over the Bears.
The Northstars had runs in six straight inning,s building a 9-0 advantage as Mia Farone smacked a home run and got three RBIs, with Mila Owens going three-for-four with two singles and a double as she also drove in three runs.
Sydney Rockwell had two RBIs as single RBIs went to Sydney Puttkamer, Eva Farone, Aubrey Coyle and Isabella Moya. Owens pitched, too, blanking Chittenango until the sixth as she struck out seven and held the Bears to four hits.
Good as this was, the Northstars got an even bigger win on Thursday when, in a nine-inning classic at Gillette, it knocked off state Class A no. 6-ranked Camden 7-6.
Arriving with a 15-1 record, the Blue Devils scored four times in the top of the first to go in front and led, 6-2, by the fourth, Brooke Musch leading the way with a home run, single and two RBIs.
C-NS chipped away, though, with two runs in the fourth and single runs in the fifth and sixth to tie it, 6-6, all while Owens settled down on her way to five shutout innings.
Finally, in the bottom of the ninth the Northstars pushed across the winning run, having seen Paige Pangaro get three hits and score twice. Farone, Marissa Leone and Payton Bach had two hits apiece, with Owens and Puttkamer earning RBIs.
When C-NS took its turn against F-M on Friday, it didn’t come close to managing Liverpool’s output from the day before, but still got a comfortable 10-5 win over the Hornets to go to 11-6 overall, just ahead of the Warriors’ 10-7 mark.
But the points system that determines the Section III playoff brackets favored the Warriors, who gained the top seed and meets Rome Free Academy or Syracuse City in one semifinal Wednesday at Carrier Park as C-NS, the no. 2 seed, would need to beat no. 3 seed B’ville a third time in order to get to Friday’s 5 p.m. final at that same venue.
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