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Baseball: Babylon walks away from Mercy a 15-2 winner

Bishop McGann-Mercy baseball player Matt Chilicki 041416

Following a 15-2 pasting by Babylon on Thursday, Bishop McGann-Mercy coach Ed Meier was asked what his baseball team needed the most right now.

“Playing a different club,” he answered. “To play someone who’s not going to challenge for New York State.”

That would be nice.

McGann-Mercy opened its season against defending New York State Class B champion Mattituck, which swept the three-game League VIII series, 13-3, 4-1 and 12-3. Then it began its second league series against a strong Babylon team, dropping the first game, 6-0, before falling again on Thursday in Riverhead.

McGann-Mercy, the smallest Class B school in the state, faces a severe handicap as it is. The team has only 10 players. That number was boosted up to 11 Thursday because Christian Shackel was brought up from the junior varsity team to play first base.

As one-sided as the final score was, many of the numbers were fairly even. What distorted things were the walks, Babylon (8-0, 8-0) drew nine of them to go with its 11 hits.

The Panthers forged a 7-0 lead by the third inning. They also received a quality start from pitcher Shaun Kaminski (3-0), who gave up five hits and one earned run over five innings. The righthander had seven strikeouts and did not issue a walk.

Sean Flynn (2 for 3, four runs, stolen base, two walks), Kaminski (2 for 4, two runs, run batted in) and Brandon Beierle (2 for 4, two runs, two RBIs, two stolen bases) fed the Babylon offense, which also received two RBIs from Chris Botto.

Four of the seven hits put up by McGann-Mercy (0-5, 0-5) were doubles, all hit to the same area in left-center field. Two of those doubles came from Nick Kneski, who had a three-hit game. The other doubles were stroked by Matt Raynor and Andrew Waski.

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Photo caption: Bishop McGann-Mercy second baseman Matt Chilicki catches a popup. (Credit: Garret Meade)