FARMINGDALE – Telstar baseball coach Bob Remington’s primary post-game talking point Monday sounded harsh, until any eavesdroppers considered the audience: “You played like freshmen.”

Remington smiled a little, of course. He owed seven of the nine hits and much of the dogged persistence the Rebels showed in a 10-4 loss to Hall-Dale to guys who might not yet own a razor.

“The whole infield is freshmen. The subs are freshmen. Right fielder’s a sophomore,” Remington said. “They’re finding out this isn’t Babe Ruth anymore. They’re freshmen playing varsity baseball, and they’re learning what they’ve been doing in middle school and Babe Ruth, they can’t do. Guys run faster and they throw harder.”

Deficits are tougher to overcome. Errors and base running blunders, more costly.

Not held without a base hit in any inning, the Rebels (1-2) simply couldn’t compensate for giving up three runs in the first and an additional four in the second.

Ryan Leach ripped three hits for the Bulldogs (4-1), including a two-run double and a home run. Jake Levesque was 3-for-3 with a pair of RBIs.

Winning pitcher Dylan Dupont cracked two hits, most notably a two-run triple in the opening frame. Tyler Cummings legged out an infield single in the first inning and stroked a windblown double in the second, scoring each time.

“The early runs made it a little easier for us. It turned out to be good fortune on our part, because we struggled a little bit there,” said Hall-Dale coach Tim Johnson.

First baseman Corey Howard headlined Telstar’s youth movement with four hits. Shortstop Dan Whitney went 2-for-3 with a wall double, a walk and two runs scored.

An old-school anachronism in this group, Lance Brown also tallied two hits. His classmate, James Kimball, chucked the complete game and pitched well after the spotty start.

Kimball struck out four. He retired 11 of 13 from the end of the second inning through a 1-2-3 fifth.

“Tim (Remington, assistant coach) made a trip to the mound and told him he needed to mix the change-up in more,” Remington said. “He started to get more pop-ups, and they didn’t hit the ball so hard.”

Telstar plated a run in the top of the first.

Whitney ended a lengthy at-bat against Dupont with his one-out double. Howard followed with his first hit of the day to left field, and Whitney scored when the ball took a tricky hop through the wickets.

“He’s a freshman? We couldn’t get him out,” an incredulous Johnson said of Howard. “The part that drives me crazy is the errors showing up again. That cost us (in a loss Friday) against Mountain Valley. We made five errors in that game, and we’re a better team than that.”

A brief, swirling wind wasn’t the Rebels’ friend as their lead evaporated. Dupont’s three-bagger began as a playable fly ball to center before sailing to the fence.

Cummings, Levesque and Leach ripped consecutive doubles in the second. Cummings’ sinking line drive was misplayed in the breeze. Levesque and Leach each floated a ball that dropped into shallow left field.

“Some of those were just out of their reach,” Remington said.

Telstar stranded eight runners on base, leaving the bags full when the deficit was a manageable 7-2 in the fifth.

Lance Brown’s RBI single scored T.J. O’Connor in the fourth. Tyler Brown scampered home on Mike Fitzmorris’ sacrifice fly against Hall-Dale reliever Brandon Gilbert in the sixth.

Whitney collected a seventh-inning run with the aid of a wild pitch and a throwing error.