By Jon Sargalis
Box Score
The Utica Blue Sox stunned the defending champion Saugerties Stallions to earn a spot into the East Division Final and after 2 days of rain outs, they stunned the top seeded Amsterdam Mohawks with a 10-2 blowout victory on Thursday night at Rao Family Stadium to punch their ticket to the PGCBL Championship.
For the first time since 2018 the Mohawks did not play the Saugerties Stallions in the playoffs and after going 8-0 over Utica in the regular season, Amsterdam had every reason to think things would break their way again.
The first inning began with Taylor Belza hitting his second straight playoff home run as the Mohawks jumped out to an early 1-0 lead.
The lead was short lived as Utica came out swinging in the second. Anthony Perritano hit a leadoff single and Kevin Francella connected on a 2-run home run that just cleared the left field fence to put the Blue Sox up 2-1.
Every game between the Mohawks and Blue Sox had been a back and forth, high scoring affair this season, evidenced by the game this past Sunday that ended up in a 16-14 Mohawks victory, but Utica starter Wes Maskimow had other plans. He was locked in after the first inning home run and went on a stretch of retiring 12 straight Mohawks between the second and sixth innings.
Saxon Roberts also found his groove after the second inning home run as he threw a scoreless third and fourth inning.
In the fifth is when the momentum shift for the Blue Sox became evident. Robbie Carvelli hit a 1 out single and Michael Flashner followed by working a 9-pitch walk that caused a move to the pen and brought Evan Taylor to the mound. Connor Jones took the second pitch he saw from Taylor and deposited it over the left field fence for a 3-run homer to expand the lead to 5-1.
In the sixth, Utica added another 4 runs as an error allowed Ethan Madison to score, Jack Sweeney hit a 2-run triple and Kevin Francella was hit by a pitch to suddenly make it a 9-1 deficit.
The seventh saw RJ Thomae draw a bases loaded walk to make it 10-1, Blue Sox.
Amsterdam finally put a run across in the eighth as Aiden Dill drew a bases loaded walk, but Utica brought in closer Drake Aycock for the final four outs to end the Mohawks season.
Wes Maskimow was the star for Utica as he was the winning pitcher allowing 1 run on 2 hits and 3 walks with 4 strikeouts over 6 innings.
Amsterdam’s season ends at the same point it did last year as it becomes the first time since 2007-2008 the Mohawks have gone consecutive seasons without an appearance in the league championship. For Utica it was their third ever win in 37 games played in Amsterdam dating back to 2003. Before tonight, the last time the Blue Sox won in Amsterdam was on July 20, 2017, when they won the first game of a doubleheader 4-3. The starting pitcher for Utica that day pitched the complete seven innings and recorded 8 strikeouts. His name was Louie Varland. He went on to pitch in the World Series for the Blue Jays last season and represented the America League by pitching in the MLB All-Star Game earlier this month.
Utica will now travel to Batavia on Friday for the PGCBL Championship. It’s the first time Utica has been in the Championship since 2016 and first time for Batavia since 2022. It’ll be the first title for whichever team wins as Amsterdam prevailed in both those years. The Championship Series has been reduced from best-of-three to a winner-take-all due to the prolonged rainouts and the league has a hard end date of July 31.
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