Long before the first pitch was thrown, the first barb was tossed. It was from longtime St. Raymond coach Ron Patnosh, directed at Regis coach Mike Skrapits. His team was late arriving at Ravens Field and Patnosh and his staff wouldn’t let Skrapits, a Bronx native, hear the end of it.

But it was more than friendly ribbing between rival coaches. Skrapits played for Patnosh’s summer team when he was in high school. Even Skrapits’ father, Mike, played for Patnosh in high school, earning all-city honors in 1976.

He was inducted into the St. Raymond’s Hall of Fame and is the third all-time leading hitter with a career .414 batting average.

“He was a tremendous hitter, couldn’t get a fastball by him,” Patnosh said of Mike Sr.

The younger Mike Skrapits is in his second year as Regis varsity coach and Friday was his third head-to-head meeting against Patnosh and the Ravens. All three meetings were decided by one run, with Regis winning twice, including a 5-4 victory yesterday.

Skraptis’ father also found his way to the field, bringing iced coffee for the entire St. Ray’s staff. His son got nothing, which is something Skrapits reminded the Ravens coaches about.

“I think he had to bring them coffee because he’s an alumnus, but I hope he roots for us because if he doesn’t it would be awkward,” Skrapits said.

Skrapits also complained about the leftfield line being crooked after one of his players hit a shot that was just foul. St. Ray’s coach Marc DeLuca joked that they had to paint the line in a hurry because Regis was so late arriving.

“It’s a lot of fun to come back here, especially with all those guys,” Skrapits said. “It’s always good-natured, but there’s a lot of it and it goes both ways. DeLuca stole a call there and he said I stole one on a check swing, then Ronnie tried to make an illegal substitution and we caught him on it. I actually wrote down things to watch for, all the stuff I remember him running.”

Skrapits did that on the other side of an index card that had information about his bullpen. He even showed Patnosh the card before the game.

“He pretends he doesn’t know the rules, but he knows all the rules backward and forward,” Skrapits said.

In fact, Skrapits said it was a challenge to not only anticipate what tricks Patnosh was going to pull out of his bag, but also use one of his own when he pulled off a delayed double steal to score a run in the second inning.

“It’s real nice to beat him because he has some trick plays of his own, some special plays that kind of made me think a bit more creatively about different situations,” Skrapits said. “It’s nice to beat him because he’s one of the guys I do look up to.”

dbutler@nypost.com