As it paraded through the 2009 season, the Baldwinsville softball team found out that it can hang right with, and sometimes beat, the elite opponents in the Section III Class AA ranks. It’s now just a matter of doing it at season’s end, when it means the most.
The no. 6 seed Bees put a big fright into no. 2 seed Liverpool in last Wednesday’s AA semifinal at Hopkins Road Park, but still had to take a 1-0 loss to the Warriors. Quickly, the game turned into a duel between B’ville pitching ace Cassie Williams and Liverpool right-hander Tiffany Sampere. For three innings, they kept the game at 0-0, neither side able to muster much at the plate. But in the bottom of the fourth, Liverpool loaded the bases, and Erin Squairs’ grounder brought Sara Tram home with what proved to be the game’s lone run. Williams would settle down and allow nothing more, but Sampere’s own shutout delivered the Warriors to the AA final against Cicero-North Syracuse as it avenged a May 14 regular-season loss to the Bees.