by Jacob Infald
It was a tale of two games on Sunday June 8th in some early season LI Boys of Summer action in the 14U American Division. After a 1-1 tie that was centered around soft contact and great defense, Giac’s 463 Squad’s bats came alive in game two as they powered their way to a 10-3 victory over Yeti Baseball Navy behind sound pitching and a well-rounded approach at the plate.
Game 1
Fife does his job and this great game ends in a tie.
Giac’s 463 Squad 1 – Yeti Baseball Navy 1 pic.twitter.com/Y8FDtyG768— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) June 8, 2025
Colin Mahoney had everything working out on the mound for Yeti. The southpaw was pitching on his home turf as he is an East Islip student in the 2029 class. He utilized a variety of off speed pitches, which he believed kept Giac’s hitters off balance. He threw seven innings, allowing only one run.
However, he found himself pitching in a deficit early as Giac would score their lone run in the bottom half of the first. Catcher Ryan Nies hit a bloop single to right center with one out before being pinch run for. Two batters later, Christian Arlia would drive the runner in with a solid base hit up the middle to get his team on the board and fired up as cheers erupted from their dugout.
On the bump for Giac’s 463 Squad was James Casey. The tall right-hander just finished up his freshman year at Kellenberg High School. He threw five innings, allowing one run and striking out two.
After getting through the first two innings relatively unscathed, Casey found himself in trouble in the top half of the third. With the first two batters already retired, he let up a base hit to right field off the bat of Jacob Brussey (Connetquot 2028) which was followed up by a Evan Bontich walk. Mahoney, who was Yeti’s leadoff batter, stepped to the plate with an opportunity to help himself. However, Casey remained poised and forced Mahoney to hit a ground ball to Danny Ring at third who stepped on the bag to retire the side.
Yeti would look to strike again in the top half of the fifth inning after a leadoff single by Sebastian DeFaclo. With Andrew Fife at the plate, DeFalco would advance to second and then third on multiple passed balls. With the tying run only 90 feet away, the following batter, Tyler O’Sullivan would come through, punching the ball to left field for an RBI single and for the first time since it was 0-0 in the first inning the game was tied up.
In the bottom of the frame, Giac looked to strike back. After two walks they found themselves with runners on first and second with two outs and their number three batter, Aiden Moreno at the dish. Mahoney would bear down, and force a weak grounder to the left side which was gobbled up by O’Sullivan, he flipped it to second for the third out of the inning. O’Sullivan was an anchor for Yeti’s defense this game as they were able to hold their opponent to just one run despite Mahoney recording zero strikeouts.
Arila came on in relief for Casey to start the 6th inning and was dominant, throwing three scoreless frames with two strikeouts that both came courtesy of nasty breaking balls.
Arlia would run into trouble in the top of the 7th when Michael Boyd hit a leadoff double to the gap in left-center field. After a one-out groundout by Mikey Crispo advanced Boyd to third, it looked like the Yeti were going to break through. Instead, in what was a common theme in this game, Arlia forced DeFalco to weakly hit one on the ground which would be the third out of the inning.
Flash forward to the top of 8th, the Yeti once again had men on base with two outs. Mahoney was at the dish and could not seem to time up Arlia. Foul ball after foul ball was hit out of play on the third base side. Finally after four in a row, Mahoney worked a walk to load up the bases for Jace Varrichio. Despite now seemingly having countless opportunities to break through, the Yeti would once again leave runners on base as Arlia forced Varrichio to ground out to the left side to end the threat.
Fife would relieve Mahoney in the bottom of the eight and worked around a walk to retire the side and the game would end in a 1-1 tie.
Game 2
That’s the game. Patrickakos leaves three on and gets this strikeout to end the game.
Giac’s 463 Squad 10 – Yeti Baseball 3 pic.twitter.com/jRBfayibHh— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) June 8, 2025
After a first game that saw very little offensive output, game two started out with a bang. With DeFalco on the bump for the Yeti, Giac’s 463 Squad got the action started early with a two spot in the top half of the first with some small ball. Dom Kloepping and Moreno walked and with one out they executed a double steal to put two runners in scoring position. DeFalco would then throw a wild pitch that plated Kloepping. Then, with two outs Dillon McCarren hustled out an RBI infield single to the left side and just like that Giac had already exceeded their run total from game 1.
In the bottom half of the frame, the Yeti would strike back in a big way. Southpaw Eli Patrickakos (Garden City 2029) struggled to find the zone early and some sloppy play by his defense led to Gavin DelaRaba (Sachem North 2028) blasting a bases clearing double to left field to give the Yeti a 3-2 lead.
Patrickakos would settle down and escape the inning without allowing further damage. In fact, he was able to keep the opposition off the scoreboard for the rest of the game, throwing six consecutive scoreless innings.
“After the first inning I tried to just throw strikes because I was throwing balls in the first inning and it worked,” Patrikakos said. “They couldn’t really answer after, I got into a couple jams but I got out of [them].”
On the other side, DeFalco continued to struggle with command. His two walks in the second inning did not cost him, but that would not be the case in the third. He walked Arlia to leadoff the inning which was followed by a Luke Golus single to left. A wild pitch would advance both runners to scoring position before McCarren recorded his second RBI of the game on a soft grounder to DelaRaba at first and the game was tied at three apiece.
The tie would not last long as Giac’s bats would explode in the fourth. After walks by Gavin Ziegler and Patrickakos, Kloepping cleared the bases on rope to left-center, good for a double. Arlia followed this up with a shot over Varrichio’s head in left to plate Kloepping. These were the big hits that the squad could not seem to find earlier in the day.
“In the first game we were trying to hit the ball way further than we could,” Patrickakos said. “In the second game we calmed down and kept our composure and started hitting the ball good.”
Giac would score four more this inning after DeFalco was replaced by Tyler Defilippis on the mound and that would be more than enough run support for Patrickakos who was lights out the rest of the day.
The Yeti looked to have one more rally in them in the bottom of the 7th as back-to-back two out singles by O’Sullivan and Brussey loaded up the bases. However, Patrickakos would bear down to get Bontich to foul tip the ball to catcher Ben Fuschillo’s glove for strike three to end the game.
Yeti starts off league play 0-1-1 and will look to bounce back tomorrow night, June 9th against the Top Tier Aviators Navy.
Giac’s 463 Squad is now 3-1-1 in league play and will take on Mayhem Baseball Resti on Tuesday June 10th and Patrickakos said they can use today as a stepping stone.
“We can build on it because in the first game we didn’t really play like us and in the second game we bounced back and we were hitting and had good defense and offense throughout the game,” Patrickakos said.
