The 1998 Merillon Athletic Association Little League season came to an exciting close with "Championship Day," on Saturday June 27. More than 350 Merillon little leaguers played in games or skills tournaments on this traditional end to the Merillon spring baseball season.

The Boys Minors division had a true "championship" game, as the Little Shop of Flowers battled CFS Bank for first place. The Little Shop of Flowers team jumped out to an early 9-1 lead, and held off a furious CFS Bank rally for a 9-7 championship victory. Mike McHale and Rob Kasoff pitched strong to lead the Little Shop of Flowers. Steve Cialone pitched four strong innings for CFS Bank. DJ Gerowski was pressed into emergency pitching duty as a replacement for Chris DiCerbo, who was the ace for CFS Bank all season. Chris missed the championship game due to illness. Gerowski pitched two strong innings and had a clutch bases loaded triple. CFS Bank had to call up Chris Murphy from the farms division to fill the spots left by the illness and other vacations that left the team short one player. "Murph" played catcher the entire game, and did and outstanding job! He also had an important double to get the CFS rally going. Chris Kasoff made a couple of key defensive plays to help preserve the win for Little Shop of Flowers. It was an outstanding effort from both teams, and was truly played like a championship game. What a terrific end to an exciting Boys Minors season!

The Boys Farms division had held its second annual "skills tournament."

The Merillon Farms Skills Festival went off flawlessly as all farms players and their teams tested their individual skills in a team format competition. The skills competition consists of four separate events in which players are awarded points for fielding, throwing, hitting and base running ( a relay race around the bases). As each player collects points they are applied to his team totals. Teams with the top three point totals are awarded a gold, silver or bronze medal.

This years gold medal winner went to F and F Roofing, coached by Tom Murphy and Ron Loosen, and the following players: Michael Guglielmi, Alan Joseph, Ethan Loosen, Chris Murphy, Anthony Perrone, Frankie Bayerbach, Nicky Cusumano, Joshua Duggan, Mike Dunn and JonPaul Dimarco.

The silver medal winners went to New Hyde Park Stationery, coached by George Wendt and John Riccardi. The team consisted of John Ganz, Daniel Grahm, Macsood Khalillah, Ryan McNulty, Andrew Montoni, Gary Rolnick, Matthew Morana, Michael Riccardi, Kyle Sheridan, Eric Wendt and Mike Porteles.

The bronze medal winners went to All Systems, coached by Tony Fiorenti and Pete Williams. The team consisted of Billy Cambell, Matthew Deluca, Brandon Lowey, Casey O'Neill, Curt Ryerson, Sammy Wilbur, Anthony Fiorenti, Cory and Matthew Williams and Clement Yu.

All Merillon team members did a great job of showing off their skills. We would like to thank all Merillon farms players, coaches and parents for what turned out to be a great season.

The players in the Instructional program, Boys Majors division, as well as Girls Farms, Minors and Majors, mixed and matched their rosters and played exhibition games just for the fun of playing ball. At the conclusion of each game, every Merillon player received a trophy, regardless of standings or winning or losing!

The day culminated with the annual "coaches" softball game. The coaches got their chance to show the little leaguers how to do all the things they had been teaching and coaching them on all season. Actually, in many cased the coaches showed examples of what NOT to do on the field! The game was great fun with one team beating the other team by one run in the bottom of the ninth inning!

The Board of Directors of Merillon Athletic Association would like to thank everyone for making this great baseball season! The parents, for bringing the kids to games and practices, and for their endless encouragement! The coaches, for volunteering their time and talents to teach baseball and good sportsmanship to the players! And above all, thanks to the children of Merillon. Thanks for making Merillon Athletic Association the greatest place to play little league baseball!

On Sunday, July 19, teams from Albertson, Carle Place, Farmingdale, Floral Park (2), Huntington (2), Glen Cove, Seaford, New Hyde Park and Bethpage traveled to the Merillon fields for games that started at 8 a.m., the last game starting at 4 p.m. Each game had four innings.

The girls from Merillon won the championship in their division, with a record of 2-0-2. Every player on the team contributed in every game. All four of our games were very exciting, with scores of 0-0, 6-6, 3-2, and 3-2 as evidence.

Our team was sponsored by New Hyde Park Funeral Home and the game highlights are as follows:

New Hyde Park Funeral Home 0

Carle Place 0

The first game started at 8 a.m. and both teams played hard and held each other to no runs. Chrissy Colon had a single and triple and two stolen bases. Chrissy was on third base ready to score the winning run, by good defense kept her there. Jessica Schacor and Stephanie Weitzel were the pitching stars. Karen Ernst and Melissa Flaherty were the catching stars. Jessica Schacor caught two high flies at short. Stephanie Weitzel made a great catch of a grounder going to her right and making an unassisted out at first base. Maria Concilio made a great play, knocking down a hard grounder, picking it up and making a perfect throw from second for an important out. Melissa Flaherty threw out a runner stealing third with Casandra Malizia making the tag. Melissa also jumped on a bunt in front of the plate and threw out a runner at first. Karen Ernst threw a perfect strike to second to get a runner stealing, only to have the runner knock the ball loose on the tag. Corinne Tisei made great plays at first, running into foul territory to get a low line drive and getting important putouts.

New Hyde Park Funeral Home 6

Huntington 6

In the second game, Melissa Flaherty pitched the entire game against the best hitting team in our division. Melissa not only pitched great, she made three great plays, fielding plays on the mound and throwing runners out at first. Stephanie Ligouri threw out a runner at first on a nice play from second. Jessica Schacor made a great play on a line drive at short and threw another runner out at first. Stefanie Weitzel caught a line drive jumping up and grabbing it way over her head. Casandra Malizia caught an important fly at third to end a rally. Kathryn Leotta plated perfectly at first base handling all her chances perfectly. Melissa Flaherty was also the hitting star with huge grand slam, single and foul RBIs. Stefanie Weitzel had two clutch singles and two RBIs knocking in the tying run. Karen Ernst added two singles. Casandra Malizia added a single and a walk and just missed stealing home. Jessica Schacor had a line drive double. Elyse Petruccio was called up from the minors and had a single and a walk. The game ended with great excitement with Melissa Flaherty on third with two outs. Elyse Petruccio hit a slow grounder down the third base line and the pitcher almost fielded the ball allowing the winning run to score, but at the last minute let it roll foul. Then Elyse fouled off a couple of pitches and earned a walk. Then up came Meghan Thewes, who hit a rocket over the third baseman's head, who jumped up and stole a game winning double.

New Hyde Park Funeral Home 3

Glen Cove 2

In the third game, with the sun coming out, Stefanie Weitzel pitched the entire game in the heat to earn the win. There were three plays of the game. Kathryn Leotta jumped on a solid line drive single to left and threw to Casandra Malizia at third to get an important force and end a rally in the first inning not allowing a run. In the last inning, with two runs in, no outs, and a runner on second, Casandra Malizia went into the hole from her third base position and made a long throw for the first out with Corinne Tisei getting the put out. Then Stefanie Weitzel struck out the next two batters leaving the tying run on third. Stephanie Ligouri made a great catch of a high fly at second. Jessica Schacor threw out runners from short to third and to second with Chrissy Colon covering from her short center position. Maria Concilio made a great play at third fielding a grounder and making a rocket throw just beating a speedy runner at first. The hitting stars were Chrissy Colon with a walk, fielders choice and two runs scored. Jessica Schacor and Elyse Petruccio each added an RBI. Stefanie Weitzel added two singles and the winning RBI. Corinne Tisei added a single.

New Hyde Park Funeral Home 3

Farmingdale 3

After cooling off in the town pool, the girls came back to find out that they were tied with Farmingdale and had to beat them to win the tournament. Jessica Schacor pitched the entire game to earn the win. Melissa Flaherty and Karen Ernst were the catching stars. Karen Ernst was hit on the wrist by a hard swing of a Farmingdale player's bat, but stayed in the game and caught the first out of the last inning on a fly ball behind the plate. Then Corrine Tisei caught a high fly at shortstop and then Jessica Schacor caught a grounder at the mound for the last out. Jessica also caught a line drive and threw to Melissa Flaherty for an important double play. Stefanie Weitzel made a nice catch of a hard line drive at first base. The play of the game was made by Maria Concilio, who caught the hardest hit ball of the entire day in left field. Maria won the game for the team by elimination a sure two run homer. All the girls on the team ran over to Maria and hugged and congratulated her on the play. Corinne Tisei also made a great play at short with Kathryn Leotta making the put out running in from short center. The hitting stars were Corrine Tisei who hit a single and stole third and home for our first run. In the second inning, Chrissy Colon led off the inning with a double. Kathryn Leotta hit a solid single and Melissa Flaherty walked loading the bases. Stephanie Ligouri then hit a two RBI single knocking in the winning run. Meghan Thewes again was robbed of another hard hit line drive single. Christina Lipinski was also robbed of hits by great defensive plays.

The coaches, Bob, Steve and Hughie, would like to thank the girls for a great day. Their outstanding play gave the coaches, parents and grandparents four action packed games that weren't decided until the last out.

The coaches would also like to thank the Concilo's, Lipinski's and the Ligouri's for helping to set up the fields, and raking and cleaning the fields at the end of the day.

The coaches would like to thank Jim Lawlor and Dan Petruccio on a great tournament. Parents from all the teams had only compliments for a great day.

On a personal note, I would like to thank Chris Pisciotta for a great job throughout the year. Thanks for all your help and for all the time you gave to our team and the entire Merillon league.