By PAUL GOTHAM
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The Old Testament includes the story of the great Samson whose prodigious strength was said to be derived from his hair that he had not cut since birth. When Delilah, the woman he loves, cut those locks from his head, Samson was rendered powerless.
Thankfully, for the Fairport baseball team, Braden Consaul does not suffer from the same curse.
The Fairport hurler, who recently got a fresh cut for the school’s senior ball, showed Wednesday that his strength on the mound comes from more than his now former dangling locks of hair.
Consaul tossed a two-hitter as No. 8 Fairport toppled top-seeded Hilton, 2-1 in Section V Class AA action on Wednesday.
“It feels good; it feels really good,” the 6-foot-1 right-hander said of the win. “They beat us last year in sectionals, so it feels good to get them back this year.”
After allowing a base hit on his first pitch of the game, Consaul went on to retire 17 straight batters. The USC Upstate commit finished with nine strike outs.
“Braden went crazy today,” Fairport head coach Tom Caputo said. “He was all pent up looking to get to this game. He wanted this game bad. Kudos to him. He was great. He threw a low pitch count. He hit his spots. Kept kids off bases. That’s how you win.”
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Consaul retired five of six on ground balls between the second and third innings. He fanned the side in order in the fifth and closed the game with a pair of punch outs.
“My fastball felt really good that inning,” he said of the fifth. “I knew I could get it past that part of the order, so we rocked with it. It worked out. The other innings I was getting ahead and I was going to my curveball. It was getting the ground balls.”
Getting ground balls was important. Having issued 32 walks and surrendering 42 hits in 37.1 innings for a WHIP (walks + hits per inning) of nearly two heading into Wednesday’s action, Consaul handed out just three free passes on Wednesday. He faced six batters over the limit and improved to 3-4 on the season.
“Over my career, I’ve been a strike out and walk kind of guy. The last few outings I’ve been pitching to contact. It’s been keeping my pitch count down a lot and allowing me to go further into games. That’s what we’ve been working on. It feels good to get through the whole game. Being able to pitch to contact and limiting the walks is what really helped.”
Fairport’s offense managed five hits in the game. Consaul had two of those.
Connor Sackett led the second with a single. Consaul followed one out later with a base hit of his own. Sackett tagged on Blake Bucenec’s fly ball and scored on an ensuing errant throw that bounded into the Fairport dugout.
The Red Raiders took advantage of another fielding miscue to score in the third. Will Stanek reached first when his groundball was mishandled and advanced on a throw wide of the bag. Dylan Norton put runners on the corners with an opposite-field single. Stanek came home on Julien Mendoza’s RBI groundout.
Fairport had all the offense it needed.
“That’s a great team we just played,” Caputo said. “They’re competitors, but I thought we matched up really well with them.
“It came down to it, we played better. Fortunately, we took advantage of some errors.”
Fairport (8-13) had struggled through a five-game losing streak from late April into May. After a pair of wins, the Red Raiders dropped another three of four. They entered play on Wednesday having lost two of three.
The two teams split a pair of regular season meetings with Hilton (17-4) taking the first matchup on May 9th, 9-6. Two days later, Fairport turned the tables, 4-2. The setback was at that point the only defeat the Cadets suffered against a Section V opponent.
“We didn’t think it was a fluke,” Consaul said. “We really liked our matchup. Obviously, they’re a really good team, but we really liked our matchups coming into sectionals. We thought we had a good path to get the championship. We knew we already beat them and we knew we just had to play a clean game and be on it the whole game. That’s what we did today.”
After mistakes in the field led to a loss in the first head-to-head, Fairport’s defense turned in an errorless performance on Wednesday. Something Caputo emphasized as part of his young starter’s success.
“He trusts his defense. We got on our field the last couple of days and preached defense, defense, defense. Trusting the guys behind him. That’s what he did.”
Braden Consaul finishes it off. FINAL CLASS AA: Fairport 2 Hilton 1 pic.twitter.com/zPJdaW9oW8
— Paul Gotham (@PickinSplinters) May 25, 2022
Hilton’s James Capellupo took the tough-luck loss. The junior right-hander struck out four and walked two. Both Fairport runs were unearned.
The Cadets rallied in the sixth. Michael Whelehan worked a two-out walk and scored on Steven Kraus’s double to right field. Carter Clark was intentionally walked before Capellupo reached on a hit by pitch. Consaul induced a ground ball to escape with the lead intact.
“Anyone can beat anyone on any day,” Consaul said. “You got to be on your game every time. We believed in ourselves and we came out and got the job done.”
Fairport will face No. 5 Victor in Friday’s semifinal. The two teams split during the regular season. Game time is to be announced.
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