On Aug. 11 the battle in the National Division heated up. Leading the way is the resurgent Moby squad as they beat Barco 13-6 to improve their record to 7-3 and a share of the divisional lead. Moby jumped out to an early lead, scoring five in the first and never looked back. Donny Merrits pitched a strong game holding the Barco team to only six runs while the offense came through with timely hits. The defense was sharp and they played a real strong game. Barco fell to 6-4 with the loss. Keeping pace with Moby is Singletons (7-3) as they knocked off a struggling Changing Times (1-9) team 16-13. CT took advantage of a few early walks along with some timely hitting to take a quick three-run lead in the first but Singletons answered right back. CT regained the lead, going up by five but Big Red rebounded with 10 unanswered runs. Times made it a close game pulling to within one in the seventh but Red added two more to ice the victory. Swinging the hot bats for Singletons were Tommy (Tino) Sorrentino and Benny (Mariano) Alberto with five hits a piece. Also for Red was Al Veneziano with another four-hit night and Bob Davis and Tom Callahan who chipped in with three. In the shadows comes M&T who came up with an outstanding come-from-behind victory over the American Division leaders Synergy. With Synergy leading 5-1, M&T rallied to take the lead on Rich Peccia's bases loaded triple giving them a 7-5 edge. Synergy regained the lead again but in the sixth, M&T staged a two-out rally scoring nine. Synergy once again threatened but this time they were shut down as Frank Tiscione came in for relief and put out the fire; giving M&T a 16-15 win. Synergy still possesses the league's best record (8-2) along with a two-game lead over Barco. Mers Ale House continued their midseason winning streak with a 10-5 victory over Built-More Builders for their third consecutive win thus building their record to 4-6 after an abysmal 1-6 start. The Mers infield gloves were exceptional against BMB and turned a number of double plays. Rookie Bill Gruener continues to make fabulous plays at third and started one real nice double play while George Cohan turned in another solid performance at shortstop and made a brilliant catch off a hard hit line drive. Second baseman, Jor Girimonte, and first baseman, Jim Fileccia, also made some fine plays on the strong right side as well as pitcher Joe Fanning, who made a number of put outs and also started an inning ending double play. Outfielders Tom Fitzpatrick, Byron Bodine, Bill Sutherland, Rob Schellhorn, and Tom Vella were outstanding running down almost everything hit toward them. The Mers bats continued to remain strong with George Cohan going 3-4 and 8-13 over the last three games. Kevin Brosnan, Jim Fileccia, Tom DiCarlo, and Joe Fanning were all 2-3 while Joe Girimonte went 2-3 and Rob Schellhorn 2-4. With the loss BMB dropped to 4-5-1. Bethpage PT (3-7) finally put it all together and had their best night in defeating Hampton Air East 23-3. John Leone had his best pitching performance of the year and helped himself with a 5-5 night at the plate. Others with big nights were John Cernuto (6-6), Michael Colecchia (5-7 & 7 RBIs), Robert Concessi (4-5) and big Frank Horozewski (three hits/three RBIs). Also playing well were Michael Kochen (3-5), Rick Bugeria (three RBIs) and Frank Nardone, who literally stepped up to the plate and caught the whole game, bad knee and all. No results were reported from the Bar Boy - O'Sheas contest.

On a sad note, the league would like to offer their condolences to Dom Bello on the passing of his wife Fran. May she rest in peace.

For more information visit www.othgny.com. To contact Gary Jambor or the Over the Hill Gang, email othg_gj@yahoo.com.