Whitehouse Post 284 captured the 2025 High School Fall League championship, its third in four years.
By Rich Bevensee
After a one-year hiatus, Whitehouse Post 284 is back on top of the Diamond Nation Fall League baseball mountain.
The Hillsborough Raiders carried a potent offense. The Out Of The Park Cyclones displayed overall excellence, pushing three age group teams into the tournament quarterfinals. And the Goon Squad of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the defending champions, brought their usual bravado to the ballpark.
But it was Whitehouse Post 284, which by coach Steve Farsiou’s standards didn’t play its best baseball until the final week of the season, that was the last team standing.
Jack Schlaudecker threw 4⅓ sturdy innings, C.C. Kozak ripped the game-deciding two-run double, and sixth-seeded Whitehouse Post 284 captured the Diamond Nation High School Fall League championship with a 4-2 victory over the fourth-seeded OOTP Cyclones 17U Prospects on Thursday evening at ‘The Nation.’
This is Whitehouse Post 284’s third Fall League title in four years, after winning back-to-back titles in 2022 and ‘23. Farsiou’s club bowed out in the quarterfinals last fall.
“This means everything because last year we fell short and didn’t even make it to the final day,” said Kozak, a senior outfielder at Middlesex who was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player. “This is just a great feeling.”
Whitehouse Post 284 finished with a 9-2 record after dispatching No. 22 seed Zoned RedHawks, 9-1, in the first round of the playoffs, then eliminating all three Cyclones ballclubs – third-seeded Cyclones 18U, 6-1, second-seeded Cyclones 15U, 5-2, in an eight-inning semifinal, and fourth-seeded Cyclones 17U in the final.
“To be honest, this is a brand new team,” Farsiou said. “What it takes to reach this point is getting these kids to understand what our system is. We didn’t play well in the beginning of the year, and then they kind of figured it out and our best baseball was this past week.”
The Cyclones 17U Prospects (8-3) reached the final by eliminating 13-seeded Goon Squad, 7-4, 12-seeded Hustle Baseball 2, 6-2, and top-seeded Hillsborough, 3-1 in the semifinals.
All three Cyclones teams in the Fall League reached the quarterfinals, and two played in the semifinals.
“I think collectively this was way more successful than we envisioned, especially with our 15s being the two-seed,” Cyclones coach Travis Zilg said. “This group (the 17U team) probably played the most consistent baseball out of all three teams.”
The championship game began as a thrilling pitching duel between Schlaudecker, a senior righty from Voorhees High, and Cyclones southpaw Logan Erath, a junior from Scotch Plains-Fanwood.
Through four innings, Schlaudecker and Erath threw zeroes at each other’s team, with Whitehouse’s No. 11 hitter Julian Liu collecting the only base hit to that point.
Whitehouse broke through with a two-out rally in the top half of the fifth. Joey Tedesco hit a slow chopper to third that caught the deep-playing Jacob Vosseler off-guard, and Tedesco reached safely while Trey Garutti scored from third with the game’s first run.
After Carter Nielsen walked, Kozak blasted a double into the right center gap to score Tedesco and Nielsen for a 3-0 Whitehouse lead. Liu made it 4-0 with an RBI single which streaked just inside third base.
“Right before the at bat, I walked over to my coach and he said try and hit it to right field,” Kozak said. “Because I have a problem pulling out and hitting everything to left, he told me to stay closed and hit it to right. I’ve been struggling for a while so that felt good. It felt great to finally break it open because that game was tough and that was a good team over there.”
“He’s a stud, he’s a gamer, and he’s got ice in his veins,” Farsiou said of Kozak. “He deserves every accolade out there because I think he’s been overlooked.”
High School Fall League MVP C.C. Kozak had a two-run double in the final for Whitehouse Post 284.
The Cyclones rebounded quickly, scoring two runs in the bottom half of the inning. With the bases loaded and one out, Alex Tabares drove in a run with a hard chopper down the third base line, and Ian Losardo was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
That hit batsman was the final batter for Schlaudecker, who was brilliant before the fifth, allowing no hits and one walk across four shutout innings. After Losardo reached, Matteo Tramutola came on in relief with the bases loaded and induced an inning-ending 5-2-3 double play.
Armed with an especially effective slider in addition to a fastball, curveball and changeup, Schlaudecker permitted two runs on three hits and two walks and he struck out two over 4⅓ innings.
“At this point in the season, it’s not important to me that it’s a championship game,” Schlaudecker said. “I treat it like any other game and do what my coach says. Let them hit it and let my defense make plays.
“This is my first season with the team and I’m passionate about my coach because he does a lot for me in terms of playing at the next level. It feels great knowing I did my job for him.”
Whitehouse threatened to expand its lead in the sixth by loading the bases with no out. But Erath induced an infield popup and then handed off to Anthony Mustacciuolo, who promptly kept the Cyclones in the game by striking out the next two batters.
In the bottom of the sixth, Whitehouse catcher Jackson Lewis made perhaps the best heads-up play of the game. With Vosseler at second and Ronnie Germinder at first and one out, the Cyclones attempted a double steal. Instead of going after the lead runner, Lewis threw down to second to gun down Germinder, who represented the tying run. Tramutola then got a strikeout to end the inning.
In the seventh, the Cyclones sent the tying run to the plate twice. The first time, with Davis Murphy at first, Tramutola got Mustacciuolo to hit into a double play. Aiden DuHaime singled to delay the Whitehouse celebration only briefly, because Tramutola got a strikeout looking to end the game and clinch the championship.
“We’ve had name recognition with players from our teams,” Farsiou said. “But this group may be one of the best I’m going to remember, the way they bought in and were coachable. This is about them.”