SENECA FALLS — The regular season schedule is winding down and with tons of games packed together during the final couple of weeks of this 2025 high school baseball season, both the Palmyra-Macedon Red Raiders and Mynderse Academy Blue Devils are using this stretch to their advantage.
On Saturday morning when the two sides met, the Red Raiders were playing their third of five games in an eight-day span to conclude its regular season while the Blue Devils were playing in its third straight day of action, which was a part of five games in a six-day stretch to wrap up its regular season.
Junior Anthony Porpora III pitched five solid innings to pick up the win on the mound for Pal-Mac as his Red Raiders claimed a 6-1 victory at Mynderse Academy for the two-game sweep this year.
“(Anthony) has been battling all year between centerfield and catcher and we have two really good pitchers ahead of him so he finally got a chance to pitch (today) and we knew he had that in him,” Palmyra-Macedon head coach Coleston Scheik said about Porpora’s start.
The righty finished with three hits, one run (one earned), two walks allowed while striking out nine Mynderse batters in five innings for his start.
Porpora was the first batter of the game and he started the contest with a base on balls from Blue Devils senior right-handed starting pitcher Aiden Levis.
Things didn’t start off the way Levis had hoped after allowing three runs in the top of the first inning.
Porpora came around to the score the game’s first run from an RBI single to left field by Red Raiders junior third basemen Noah Dapolito.
Two batters later, junior left fielder Jordan Goff laced a two-run double to right field by extending his team’s early lead to 3-0 during the first inning.
“We’re getting ourselves where we need to be when we get into sectionals,” Mynderse Academy head coach Charlie Foster said about his group. “We see the little things that we do good at and we see the things that we need to get better at. I have 100-percent faith in these guys that we can put it all together and we could be a dangerous team going into sectionals.”
After a rough first inning, Levis settled down to put together a solid final three innings to close out his outing. The righty concluded with four hits, five runs, four walks allowed while punching out three Red Raiders in four innings of work.
Levis takes the loss but he is a part of seven-senior group that has featured a roller coaster type of season in 2025.
In this three consecutive game span, Mynderse (7-7, 6-7) fell to Pal-Mac and rival Waterloo from the day before. But, this stretch started with an impressive, quick victory over Wayne Central.
“We are a resilient team,” Foster said about his squad. “We have a lot of young players at big roles and they learning every day. I have phenomenal senior leadership and they are taking the younger kids under their wings. We’re growing and learning right now but I think we have the right people in the right positions and we have the right people helping the right kids. I love this team to death and I can’t say enough about them. Wins or losses, I take that completely out of the way. We’re finding ways to react to wins and react to losses and we’re figuring out how we need to get better for our team.”
After two straight scoreless innings at the plate, Pal-Mac (12-4, 10-3) got back to work in the top of the fourth inning to extend their lead.
Senior right fielder Shane Maier started the inning with a hit by pitch for the Red Raiders.
Maier then stole second base and reached third on a ground out to second base by the ensuing batter in senior center fielder Constantino LoPresto.
While Maier remained on third base, junior first basemen Gavin Everts walked and stole second to set up a second-and-third with 1-out scenario for Porpora at the top of the order.
Porpora, who finished with a team-high two hits, smacked a two-run single to right field to score Maier and Everts and extend the lead to 5-0 in Levis’ final inning of work.
“We’re playing great at the right time,” Scheik said about his team right now. “The game against Geneva (on Monday) puts us in a great spot to potentially share the league title with Wayne. Then against East (on Tuesday), there’s a little we want to get that victory back against them.”
The Red Raiders lost in the quarterfinals of the Section V Class A tournament against East High School during the 2024 postseason.
“When sectionals comes, it’s a one game playoff every single game,” Scheik added. “Everybody’s together and nobody’s above anybody so we’re all staying together and winning one game at a time.”
Pal-Mac will play at Geneva on Monday for its final league of the year at 5 p.m. followed by its regular season finale matchup on Tuesday at 5 p.m. at East High School.
As of right now, the Red Raiders and Wayne are tied atop of the Finger Lakes East standings with one more league game left for the two sides. While Pal-Mac has Geneva left, Wayne (12-7, 10-3) hosts Newark on Monday at 5 p.m.
“We have five or six guys that can pitch so this style of five or six games in a week suits us because we can throw a bunch of guys,” Scheik said. “It was nice to get (Anthony) and (Andrew) West on the mound today. We’re excited to finish the year strong.”
West hurdled the final two innings of the contest while allowing zero runs and striking out five.
The Blue Devils recorded their lone run of the game in bottom of the fourth inning when senior designated hitter Matthew Bogart stepped up to the plate with a 1-out, bases loaded jam for Porpora.
Bogart groundout to second place, which allowed senior teammate Cullen Herron to score. Herron led Mynderse with two hits in the ballgame.
Porpora got out of the inning without any more damage after getting the ensuing batter in junior left fielder Jeremiah Furman to pop up to second base.
“We just played a tough Wayne team, we just played last night against a hot Waterloo team and obviously Pal-Mac is a great team so this was a tough three days for us,” Foster said about his recent stretch of action. “We just need to hit the reset button when coming into sectionals and continue to build. We want to host a home game for sectionals so we’ve been playing in sectional mode right now.”
The Blue Devils will host Waterloo on Monday at 5 p.m. for senior day and then travel to Lyons on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. for its regular season finale.