The West Genesee baseball team punched its ticket to the Class AA sectional championship game on Thursday with a 2-1 win over Cicero-North Syracuse behind a dominant complete-game effort from Ryan Klementowski. The second-seeded Wildcats will travel to face No. 1 Baldwinsville at noon on Saturday for the title, in a rematch of the nine-inning championship classic from 2018, which the Bees won 1-0.

West Genesee hasn't won a sectional crown since 1977, when current coach Kevin Krause was four years old.  

Baldwinsville won two of the three head-to-head meetings against the Wildcats this spring, but each game was close, and low-scoring. Across the trio of contests, both teams scored just five runs, with the Bees taking 2-1 and 3-1 victories and West Genesee grabbing a 3-0 shutout.

"I expect a low-scoring game and they're always good ones," Krause said of the title matchup against the top seed. "Every pitch you're at the edge of you're on the edge of your seat."

Daniel Davis led the Wildcats' offense on Thursday by going 2-for-3 with a double and two RBIs. Jacob Crystal went all six innings on the mound for C-NS and allowed two runs on five hits and four walks, while striking out a pair.In Thursday's nail-biter against the third-seeded Northstars, Klementowski pitched all seven innings and allowed just one unearned run on seven hits, two walks and seven strikeouts. After retiring the first two batters in the top of the seventh, the top of the C-NS order put a rally together with a single and a walk, before Klementowski induced a fly out to left to secure his team's spot in Saturday's game.

Even with the storyline of a 44-year championship drought facing his program, Krause said it won't be on the mind of his team.

"We're going to play like we have the last 10 games," he said. "This is a new season."