Thursday, October 1, 2026
The dream season continues for the Bellmore JFK baseball team.
After dramatically winning their first county championship, the Cougars claimed their first Long Island crown, defeating Hauppauge, 9-3, to win the Class AA title last Saturday at Farmingdale State College.
Kennedy (22-5) will advance to the New York State Class AA semifinals in Binghamton to face Cornwall Central on Friday at 7 p.m..
“We have another week of baseball together, and then this will be it,” Cougars coach Mike Gattus said. “Our message all year has been to take it day by day, be where your feet are, be present. The kids have really embraced that, and they’re echoing that, which is a great thing for me to see as a coach, that they’re taking that to heart and they're living it.”
Junior Ryan Yormack set the tone with a leadoff double in the first inning and scored on an error. A sacrifice fly by junior Matt Toliplano gave the Cougars a 2-0 lead.
“He’s hit into some tough luck recently, but just always puts together tremendous at-bats and he found the left field wall almost to start the game,” Gattus said of Yormack. “That was big for us and big for him.”
Senior Zach Adelstein added RBI doubles in the second and fourth innings as Kennedy took a 4-2 lead into the fifth inning.
“He was a guy who throughout his career has been a day one pitcher for us, and when we ask him to play the outfield, he does that,” Gattus said. “We ask him to lay a bunt down, he does that. And then he just steps up tremendously with some great hitting at the bottom of the lineup to drive some runs in and turn the lineup over. Really can’t ask for more out of him.”
The Cougars tacked on another run in the fifth courtesy of an RBI single to left by senior Alex Demas. Eight different batters had a hit in the game, and Kennedy scored in every inning but the third.
“It’s always been different guys,” Gattus said. “That’s just kind of our mentality. We’ve obviously had some big-time superstars who have led the way, but we are a complete team with a lot of really good players and great kids.”
Hauppauge (20-9) threatened in the top of the sixth inning, with back-to-back doubles by Kevin Hoeler and Brendan Magill, chasing junior starter Dylan Babek, who gave up three earned runs on six hits, striking out four with two walks in five-plus solid innings to get the win.
“Great hitting team,” Babek said. “I knew they were going to be aggressive, and I learned later through the game that they would hit the fastball, so I had to work with my off-speed [pitches], and they worked for me.”
In relief, Ryan Yormack was perfect, retiring all six batters he faced.
“He’s a big-time pitcher, and we’ve been fortunate enough to keep him in the field most of the time,” Gattus said of Yormack. “It’s just an incredible luxury as a coach knowing that we could go to him at any point and he could bring it like he did yesterday to throw two shutout innings. His off-speed is so good, and he throws hard. He’s just a complete two-way player, and he wanted it.”
The Cougars sealed their first Long Island championship with four runs in the sixth inning, highlighted by Demas’ two-run single up the middle.
“It feels great,” Yormack said. “We’ve been working so hard for this, so it just feels like all our work paid off there.”
