Cubs Pick up 11th Straight Win

CARMEL—The U-14 Carmel Cubs baseball team continued their hot play, collecting four more wins in the last week. The Cubs (11-0) opened their week with home wins over two different Brewster teams, before beating Haverstraw and Mahopac on the road.

The Cubs closed out their week with Sunday’s 6-3 win against Mahopac. The Cubs were able to overcome some base-running mistakes thanks to Brandon Tong’s strong performance on the mound.

“We had a couple of kids thrown out at the plate,” said coach Bob Shofi. “We had some blunders, but Brandon pitched very well again.”

Tong pitched six innings, and limited Mahopac to three runs while picking up four strikeouts.

Despite Tong’s strong outing the Cubs were holding onto a one-run lead before Joe Scapia came through a with two-RBI single in the sixth inning to provide some insurance.

“He drives in two runs, and that really cushioned us,” Shofi said.

Prior to their win over Mahopac the Cubs upended Haverstraw 11-2 on Saturday.

Mike Bello pitched seven innings for the Cubs and limited Haverstraw to just two hits, and provided plenty of offense as well.

Bello reached base five times, picking up a pair of doubles and drawing three walks.

“That was a great pitching job,” Shofi said. “And offensively there was a lot of walks and some timely hitting.”

The Cubs blew the game open when they scored six runs in the sixth.

Thursday’s 10-5 win over Brewster was more of the same for the Cubs, solid pitching and a balanced offensive attack.

Richie Monahan made the start and went three innings while Mike Palmero pitched the final four innings to earn the win.

“We planned to go deeper with Richie but then his arm got stiff,” Shofi said. “So Palmero came in and he pitched real well. He came in and closed it out.”

Offensively Zach Smreak led the way with three hits and three RBIs.

The Cubs opened their week with Tuesday’s 10-0 win over another Brewster team. Tong combined with Joe Burns, and Stephan Sookdeo to keep Brewster off the scoreboard. All three pitched two innings, and combined for eight strikeouts.

“The big thing there was the pitching,” Shofi said. “We were pretty much in control the whole game before it ended in the sixth with the 10 run rule.”

Cody Neary, Tom Shofi, Sebi Russo and Monahan all had RBIs in the Cubs four-run fourth to blow the game open.

“This is a good group,” Shofi said. “Every game there is a new pitching and hitting star.”

The Cubs will continue their season with three more games this week. On Friday the Cubs will play Peekskill at Peekskill Stadium at 8 p.m. After that they will host Sleepy Hollow on Saturday at 6 p.m. and North Salem on Sunday at 12 p.m. Both home games will take place at Camarda Field.