Hills East
GAME RECAP: James Lanfisi Fires 6.2 Shutout Innings of Relief, Smithtown East Clinches Playoff Berth
Final: Smithtown East 5, Hills East 0 WP: James Lanflisi (6.2 innings relief, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 Ks) Ciminiello: 1-3, 3B, 3 RBIs Smithtown East clinches postseason berth pic.twitter.com/3g30UNRryz — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 7, 2024 Going into the game, James Lanfisi figured he would watch from the dugout as staff ace Ben Kennedy took the mound looking to send his team to the playoffs. One batter in, Lanfisi found himself warming up to come in. Impressively, he was able to not only get himself ready to go on a moment’s notice, he was absolutely brilliant as he fired 6.2 shutout innings with 9 strikeouts in a 5-0 victory over Hills East to clinch a playoff berth for the Bulls. Lanfisi, who is committed to Utica, was very efficient needing just 85 pitches to dice through ...
Hills East Looks To Reach Playoffs In 2024
by Mike Merolle (Special thanks to Metamorphosis Landscape Design for sponsoring this year’s season preview series.) Hills East plans for a better year in 2024 after finishing 6-12 last season and missing out on the playoffs. The Thunderbirds finished 10-10 in the season prior. Head coach Tim Belz intends to turn things around in his 16th year managing Hills East. “Our league is very good. Every week is going to be a tough matchup for us. We’re going to have to come out and play our best baseball,” said Belz in an interview with Axcess Baseball. Belz has been dealt tough cards. Hills East’s varsity squad has the “lightest number” of varsity players this year than he’s ever had. This makes team depth one of Belz’s concerns coming into the season. He plans to rely on his team leaders...
GAME RECAP: West Islip’s Offense Strikes Early & Often in 8-0 Win
Sophomore Evan Byrnes was outstanding for West Islip as he fired six shutout innings and he was backed by an offense that posted 3 runs in the first inning and continued to tack on. He’s our Player of the Game @GCsports pic.twitter.com/QPX89aGq4e — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) April 21, 2023 There’s no question that West Islip is on the short list of top baseball programs on Long Island. They solidified that status last decade when they captured Suffolk County Class AA Championship in 2014, 2016 & 2018. In 2016, they were one win away from winning the New York State title. They nearly added to that list in 2021, but fell short in the County Championship to Newfield. They are in pursuit of adding another banner to the right field fence. They moved ever so closer to that go...
Ken Kortright State Farm Game of the Week: North Babylon’s Bats Come to Life in 13-7 Win Over Hills East
Postgame interview with Chris Stumpf who was the winning pitcher in Game 1 & 3 of the series and saved Game 2 as North Babylon improves to 3-0 on the season. He’s our Player of the Game Powered by @GCsports pic.twitter.com/XewGp9GQ2w — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) March 31, 2023 North Babylon had a strong season last year, but Coach Steve Corrado noted that they hurt themselves with their failure to secure more series sweeps, which impacted their playoff seeding. So far, so good. The Bulldogs pulled off the series sweep against a difficult Hills East team on Friday afternoon in the final day of March. They had won the first game, 1-0, on a walk-off single in the eighth inning. Chris Stumpf earned the win in relief. They won Game 2, 4-2, behind a strong pitching performance by D...
Hills East Poised for Playoff Appearance
by Nick Cipolla Half Hollow Hills East had a .500 season overall in 2022 going 10-10 overall. However, it wasn’t enough to make the playoffs as their 8-10 league record proved to be costly as they missed out on playoff baseball by a single game. Despite the unfortunate ending to the year in 2022, the Thunderbirds had some positives to take away from this season. Coach Tim Belz was pretty open about his team’s performance in 2022. “We finished 8-10 last season and we’re only 1 game away from qualifying for the playoffs”, Belz said, “there were numerous opportunities for us to make it to the playoffs but the ball just didn’t bounce our way when we needed it to. The two non league wins were against playoff teams but a couple of tough losses is what kept us out”. The Thunderbirds gradua...
Hills East Looking to Bounce Back in 2022
by Daniel Lopes After a season defined by COVID and the scheduling changes that it caused, Hills East head coach Tim Belz is hopeful that his team can bounce back from their 3-15 year in 2021. “Rebounding from a bad year last year, we’ve got some significant players coming back, and a lot of growth coming back with age and experience,” Belz said. “We’re definitely looking forward to getting back into the playoffs again, as a two-year drought for us hurts. So we want to get back into the playoffs.” Prior to that, they had reached the playoffs in four consecutive seasons. While the team did graduate some seniors from last year’s team, Belz believes that the core of the team remains intact. Hills East 2, Lindenhurst 0 WP: Ari Gluck (CG shutout) Nick Farnacci (video) and Kyle Cavataio ho...
Tim Belz Confident Team Chemistry Will Pay Off for Hills East
Reis Henderson wins it for Hills East with a walk-off single to score Nick Gavilla ! pic.twitter.com/yyZVfPV9MN — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) March 29, 2019 by Ben Diamond After losing last season, Hills East had a big senior class graduate. But, Head Baseball Coach at Hills East, Tim Belz, believes that the core of his team is still intact. Led by junior shortstop Nick Farnacci, who has been with the team since freshman year. Senior catcher Aiden Limerick, who he expects big things from this coming season, and senior RHP Kyle Cavataio. Belz said that Cavataio would’ve been a big part of his pitching staff had the season not been cancelled last year. Belz feels as though the hole left by the departing senior class isn’t as big as other schools. Uncommitted Kyle Cavataio (Hills Eas...
OTD: Pat-Med Pulls Off Huge Upset of No. 3 Hills East, Advance to Semis
Final: Pat-Med 4, Hills East 3 WP: Angelo Sciandra No. 3 Hills East is eliminated pic.twitter.com/m2HFo2zlbD — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 19, 2017 To say that Pat-Med came in with the chips stacked against them would be an understatement. As the No. 14 seed against No. 3 seed Hills East, they would have to pull off all their victories on the road. They put a sophomore, Randall Alejo, up against Vanderbilt-commit Matt Hogan and they had a number of sophomores playing prominent roles in the game. None of that mattered, as they pulled off the upset with a 4-3 victory to advance to the Class AA semifinals against Commack beginning on Monday. “We wanted to kind of represent our league, and we did a nice job, we’ve had great at bats for the past few weeks,” said Coach Anthony Frasc...
Transcript of IG Live With Matt Hogan
Matt Hogan 1st 2 Run HR Today @MattHogan10 @PBRNewYork @axcessbaseball pic.twitter.com/GxwebAPrJl — Rich Hogan (@RichHogan4) April 21, 2018 Editor’s Note: Matt is a 2018 graduate of Half Hollow Hills East. He was a five-year varsity player. He returned from a serious back injury that occurred during his junior year and bounced back in a big way by winning the 2018 Carl Yastrzemski Award – given annually to the top player in Suffolk County. From there, he went on to attend Vanderbilt University. All they did was defeat the University of Michigan in the College World Series, which was Coach Tim Corbin’s second of the decade. He came on Instagram live to talk about a variety of topics. It has been shortened for brevity. What separates Coach Tim Corbin from every other colleg...
OTD: Matt Hogan Fires No-Hitter Against Smithtown West
Matt Hogan on his no-hitter against Smithtown West pic.twitter.com/FTpv502c4o — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) April 13, 2018 by Frank Farnacci Vanderbilt-commit Matt Hogan threw a no-hitter today, leading his Half Hollow Hills East Thunderbirds to a 5-0 win over Smithtown West Bulls. “I was feeling pretty good, but honestly it was just the defense behind me today. Everyone was making plays. There were no errors in the field,” Hogan said. His humility was admirable considering he struck out eleven with a powerful fast ball and a biting curve ball. “I’ve seen Matt pitch now for three, four years at the varsity level”, said Hills East Manager Tim Belz. “Today he took a little bit off, pounded the zone, got ahead. It’s one of the best pitching performances I’ve seen from him in ...
OTD: Patch Dooley Fans 15, Fires One-Hitter in 2-1 Victory
by Tyler Marko (Photo Credit: Asia Lee) (Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on March 31, 2017.) It was a phenomenal pitching duel between Hills East ace Patch Dooley and Smithtown East’s Doug Goodwin this afternoon. Both starters dominated, but Dooley was the star–fanning 15 in a one-hitter and leading the charge in a 2-1 victory. Dooley threw a complete game, the one run he allowed came on the only hit allowed, a home run down the left field line by Andrew Canino to lead off the fourth inning. However, he came back strong recording 11 of the game’s final 12 outs on strike outs, and finishing with 15 Ks. After the game he said, “My curveball was working, I was spotting my fastball and my team did a great job of toughing out two runs to get the win.” Hills East only muste...
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