CENTRAL NEW YORK – An exciting Friday afternoon of baseball marked the start of the local season with three different teams in action and all of them having chances to score victories. Of them, only Fayetteville-Manlius prevailed, the Hornets sable to lean on strong pitching from the duo of Harris on Schwab and Boomer Kuss to get past Central Square 3-1. Schwab went five innings, holding the Redhawks to one hit while overcoming five walks with five strikeouts. Then Kuss went the final two innings for the save. F-M got all it needed when it scored twice in the bottom of the first inning, adding an insurance run in the second. Brian Tonkovich drove in two of the runs and Nolan Merrow had the other RBI. The Hornets took its first defeat of the season 7-6 to Smithtown Christian on Saturday afternoon at Gutchess Park, using four runs in the fourth inning and two in the sixth to erase a 5-0 deficit only to have Smithtown win it with single runs in the sixth and seventh innings. Schwab, going three-for-four with a double and two RBIs, led the comeback, Tonkovich and Dylan Friedman adding two RBIs apiece. Liam Dunn pitched the last two innings after Chris Cantalupe got the start. Jamesville-DeWitt, the defending sectional Class A champions, led most of the way against Baldwinsville at Onondaga Community College, only to have the Bees rally late and snatch a 3-2 victory. On this same OCC turf last spring the Red Rams won the sectional title, and here it used single runs in the first and third innings off Ben Leaton and Joey Warner to grab a 2-0 advantage. Cole Jordan drove in both runs. From there, though, the Bees blanked J-D getting a two-inning scoreless relief stint from Shane Wellman and allowing for a comeback. A run in the fourth driven in by Leaton cut it to 2-1, and then in the bottom of the seventh B’ville pulled it out as Tyler Hawthorne’s single off Eamon Giblin scored Kian Scullion. The Bees then loaded the bases before Hudson Dziadula, who had already tripled, drew a walk and the winning run scored. Luke VanMarter pitched 3 2/3 innings and struck out seven, with Eamon Giblin unable to hole that late lead after 2 1/3 innings of relief help from Jack Pole. Aside from Jordan’s run-scoring hits, J-D had just three other hits, one each by VanMarter, Giblin and Sam Ashe. Earlier that day, East Syracuse Minoa faced reigning sectional Class AA champion West Genesee and made two different late comebacks, only to fall 6-5 to the Wildcats. A two-run fifth inning by the Spartans tied it, 4-4. After WG netted a run in the bottom of the sixth, ESM countered when Trey Borkowski got to third base and scored on Chase Fredericks’ sacrifice fly. However, Borkowski hit Colin Crinnin to lead off the bottom of the seventh. Pinch-runner Jason Clifton stole second, then dashed home with the decisive run when Brayden Fougnier singled to left field. Borkowski had followed mound stints by Luke Liedka and C.J. Fleet as the Spartans managed seven hits, two of them by Braeden Phipps. Liedka singled and drove in a pair of runs as Tommy Clonan scored twice and Phipps added an RBI. ...read more read less