By Jon Sargalis

The Mohawks set a new team home run record on Monday night in a 17-4 victory over the Mohawk Valley DiamondDawgs at Veteran's Memorial Park. Amsterdam entered the night with 45 home runs, just one behind the team record of 46 set in 2019.

After two nights off, the Mohawks came out swinging. Three batters into the game, Taylor Belza hit a triple that scored Aiden Dill to get Amsterdam on the board. Gabriel Rivera then drove in Belza with a single, Robert Melo drove Rivera in with a single and Melo scored on a Zack Johnson ground out to give Amsterdam a 4-0 lead.

In the second, Evan Taylor scored on a wild pitch and Taylor Belza drove in his second run of the game as a sac-fly brought home Tyler Figueroa to make it 6-0.

Aiden Streeter got the DiamondDawgs on the board in the bottom of the second with an RBI double to make it 5-1.

The third inning was when the records started falling. Anthony DeCesare led off the inning with the team's 46th home run of the season to tie the 2019 Mohawks team. Two batters later, Evan Taylor put the 2026 team at the top of the heap as he clubbed the team's 47th home run of the season to establish a new franchise record. The 2-run shot also gave the Mohawks a 9-1 lead.

Mohawk Valley scored one on an error in the third off an error, but it was not enough to keep pace with the Mohawks who scored in each of the first six innings.

In the fourth, it was Robert Melo scoring Aiden Dill on a sac-fly and Taylor Belza scoring on a wild pitch to make it 11-2.

In the bottom of the fourth, PGCBL East Division Player of the Week Kyle Coleman hit his 4th home run in his last 3 games which made it 11-3.

It looked like Mohawk Valley would put up a zero in the fifth, but the ball came out of the glove of the center fielder and allowed 2 more Mohawks runs to score to extend the lead to 13-3.

Mason McCraine came to the plate in the sixth with the bases loaded. A wild pitch allowed Gabriel Rivera to score which then prevented McCraine from hitting a grand slam as a second later he crushed a 3-run home run to push the score to 17-3.

Mohawk Valley got one in the sixth to make it 17-4 before the game ended after seven due to the run rule.

Warren Miller was the winning pitcher, improving to 3-0 this season as the Mohawks unbeaten streak has reached 20 games with a record of 23-4-1. The Mohawks are back home on Tuesday night to host the Saugerties Stallions on free Stewart's Ice Cream Night beginning at 6:35 PM.

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