Never tell the Liverpool softball team the odds.
It was improbable enough for the Warriors to rally from a six-run deficit to beat rival Cicero-North Syracuse once, but doing it two times, in as many weeks, is an even greater rarity.
Yet that’s exactly what happened Thursday – which just happened to be May 4, observed by fans as “Star Wars Day”, as the Liverpool-C-NS rivalry, sometimes dubbed as “Star Wars”, took another memorable turn with the Warriors’ 7-6 win over the Northstars.
Just 10 days earlier at the Gillette Road complex, Liverpool had erased C-NS’s 6-0 lead and won, 8-6. Now, on the Warriors’ home field, they were battling again in a game moved up 24 hours to beat the heavy rains that would have caused a sure postponement had they tried to play on Friday.
Again, C-NS wasted little time in front, striking for two runs in the first inning and four more in the second. Victoria Dunn led that charge, driving in three runs and earning a double, while Julianna Vassalo had two RBis and Brandi Feeney doubled in another run. Ally Thompson, Ally Ciafratta and Ariana Corasaniti would finish with two hits apiece.
Once more, the Northstars handed a 6-0 lead to its pitcher, in this case Gabriella Corasaniti. For five innings, she managed to keep Liverpool off the board, though C-NS fans remained wary about what the Warriors could still – for good reason, as it turned out.
In the bottom of the sixth, Liverpool got to Corasaniti. The margin got cut to 6-4 as Gina Meyers, Alicia Nash, Sophia Harris and Olivia Hayden each had run-scoring hits.
Then, with the tying runs on base, Avery Marcy delivered the biggest hit of her Liverpool softball career, a double that plated Sophia Harris and Gina LaValle. That made it 6-6, and moments later Meyers returned to the plate singled up the middle to bring home the go-ahead run.
Now Jenna Wike, who had pitched four scoreless innings following her rough start and also got three hits at the plate, had to protect that one-run lead in the seventh. Other than a two-out walk, she did so, getting the final three outs as the state Class AA no. 11-ranked Warriors improved its overall record to 12-1.
A day earlier, C-NS had paid a visit to unbeaten, state Class B no. 8-ranked Oneida, and saw yet another big lead get away in a 7-6 defeat to the Indians.
Neither team got a run until the top of the fifth inning, when the Northstars batted around and grabbed a 6-0 lead. But Oneida countered with three runs in the bottom of the fifth, moved within 6-4 an inning later and won it by scoring three more times in the bottom of the seventh.