Watched Hudson Valley baseball today, as did about 30 or 35 scouts, mostly college coaches.

Saw a bizarre moment when, in the bottom of the first, 6-5 junior lefty Sean Hagen of Mamaroneck got ready to fire his first pitch of the game and 15 or 20 men stood up as if they were doing “the wave” and aimed radar guns at him.

“That’s the first thing you notice,” Hagen said. “I step up, and my head turns, and you just see a sea of guns rise up. It’s a little intimidating at first.â€?

His teammate, Alex Maruri of Yonkers and Stepinac, admitted that he was distracted by all the scouts’ attention on Thursday—when he swing at the first pitch in each of his first three at-bats, and when he appeared to be trying to pull the ball. But today he adjusted and ignored it.

“I usually find that when I start to think about that is when I don’t play up to my level. That’s what happened (Thursday). I came out and saw all the radar guns and saw all the notebooks and I didn’t do what I have to do. Today I just stayed focused between me and the ball and I was more successful that way.

“It did bother me. Every time I would ground out I would look back (at the scouts) and I would take that into my next at-bat. Today, first at-bat, I just focused on me and the ball and I got ahold of one and just went from there.â€?

He hit a monstrous three-run homer in the first inning and had four solid hits in a 13-1 win over Central today.

A funny moment between games for Hudson Valley, which won both for the second day in a row. The players and coaches were rounded up for a team photo. Coach Steve Greller begrudgingly got into the back of the group and muttered, “This is bad luck. This is really bad luck.”

HV won after the photo and has one round-robin game left today, and then goes for the medal. Long Island, which came in as the favorite and has lost twice, was still being feared and respected, though, because it had held out its best pitcher for the medal round.

Don’t forget to check out our Empire State Games blog at: esgames.lohudblogs.com, and the special ESG Web site on LoHud.com.