by Tucker Terranova
Final: Massapequa 0, Farmingdale 1
A walk-off balk gives Farmingdale the win and a game one series lead. pic.twitter.com/bqgfHqQn5f
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 30, 2025
It’s felt like Massapequa and Farmingdale have been on a collision course all season.
Massapequa – the longtime powerhouse with six straight county titles before last year – and Farmingdale – the team that took the title in 2024 – have been two of the best in what is arguably Nassau’s toughest public school league this spring. With a combined 27-5-1 record in conference play, Thursday’s showdown delivered on what was billed as a clash of titans.
Thursday’s encore offered an old-fashioned pitcher’s duel as Massapequa left-hander Thomas Harding and Farmingdale right-hander Colin Horowitz exchanged zeros throughout the evening in front of a packed house at Farmingdale State College.
In a game destined to be decided by the slimmest of margins, it wasn’t until the eighth inning that a winner emerged. With a runner on third, a “balk-off” brought home the game’s only run as Farmingdale took game one of the Class AAA semifinals 1-0.
For Harding, a senior left-hander committed to St. John’s, his dominance was underscored by 10 strikeouts on the night. None was bigger than his 119th and final pitch. After issuing walks of five, eight and nine pitches, to load the bases in the bottom of the seventh, Harding battled through a six-pitch at-bat and ended it with an emphatic strikeout to escape the jam.
Pitch 119 of his outing is his biggest.
Thomas Harding strands the bases loaded with his 10th strikeout. We’ll head to extras as Farmingdale and Massapequa remain deadlocked at 0-0. pic.twitter.com/6pVld2o15a
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 30, 2025
With each zero Harding recorded, Horowitz matched his dominance. Over 6.1 innings, the right-hander committed to Maritime surrendered four hits and struck out two. In what could have been his final start as a Daler, he made sure to go out with a bang.
“I knew it could be my last start here so I wanted to leave a mark tonight,” said Horowitz after the win. “I was trying to do everything I could to win this game for us.”
While it will go down in the scorebook as a no-decision for the right-hander, Farmingdale doesn’t win this game without his heroics – most notably working out of jams with two or more runners on in the first, third, fourth, fifth and sixth innings.
“We’ve put our trust in Colin all season,” said Farmingdale head coach Frank Tassielli. “We knew what we were going to get with him. He was completely refocused after a rough semifinal outing, and he was not going to let his team down today.”
The heroics from the Dalers’ pitching staff extended to their bullpen, as Justin Hills navigated a bases-loaded jam to force extra innings. He would go on to leave a runner in scoring position again in the eighth and pick up the win.
Farmingdale loaded the bases in the eighth after Ive Mills reached on an infield single, followed by intentional walks to Angel Cartagena and Eli Sierra. Mills scored on a balk while Mateo Morales was at the plate.
It was a contest that proved the Dalers’ mettle, one which they kept fighting throughout the game.
“We could’ve lost this game so many times,” Horowitz said. “We all stepped up and played great defense—that’s all that matters.”
As the reigning Class AAA champions, Farmingdale knows the hardest win is always the last one. They’ll return to Farmingdale State College Friday at 3 p.m. for game two, hoping to secure back-to-back titles.
“Last year, I feel it finally clicked for our program,” coach Tassielli said. “There’s a sense of confidence with our guys now, especially knowing we’ve done this before. We’re going to stay grounded and take things one pitch at a time.”
