Mamaroneck Advances to Baseball Semis with 7-6 Win Over Mahopac

Thanks to timely hitting and a pivotal six-run fifth inning, Mamaroneck's baseball team rallied to defeat Mahopac on Saturday in the Class AA sectional quarterfinals 7-6.

Mahopac came out swinging, building a 3-1 lead in the fourth inning, and forcing Mamaroneck head coach Mike Chiapparelli to take his starter, junior Scott Hagan, out of the game. It got worse from there for Mamaroneck, as Mahopac hit a two-run homer to extend its lead to 5-1.

"They're a hot team, and they hit the ball better than I thought they would," said Chiapparelli said. "We just weren't finishing. I told my guys, 'Hey, just swing the bats.'"

Mahopac pitcher Ryan Kuck did a good job of keeping the Tiger hitters off balance early in the contest, doing his best to speed up the tempo of the game, even earning a few warnings from the head umpire for not giving Mamaroneck's batters enough time to get set.

Mamaroneck's offense, which has scored 15 or more runs six times this season, including 32 against Lincoln in April, finally came alive with two outs in the bottom of the fifth. With a runner on first, junior Dean Chiapparelli got the Mamaroneck rally going, launching a two-run homerun to left field to cut Mahopac's lead to 5-3. The blast was Chiapparelli's second in two days, as he hit a grand slam in Mamaroneck's win over New Rochelle on Friday.

"I just tried to slow him down a little, get him out of his rhythm," said Chiapparelli about Mahopac's Kuck. "He was really comfortable out there. I wasn't trying to hit a home run. I was just looking for a good pitch to hit."

From there on, six straight Mamaroneck batters would reach base before the inning came to an end, one in which the Tigers went from four runs down, to up two. 

"Dean's homerun woke us up," Coach Chiapparelli said. "That was a big hit."

After a Mahopac error and a walk, senior Jordan Zelin tied the game at 5-5 with a two-run double, and then came home on junior Andy Sickles's triple. Mamaroneck notched its last run of the inning on a pinch-hit RBI single by senior Richard Dropkin to make it 7-5.

Mahopac's Keith Mattos hit a solo home run in the top of the sixth inning to cut Mamaroneck's lead to 7-6, but Tiger relievers Sam Wallach and Greg Denyssenko combined for a scoreless seventh to close out the Mamaroneck win.

The game ended in somewhat controversial fashion, as interference with the catcher was called on a Mahopac batter after he struck out while his teammate was attempting to steal second base. The umpire ruled it a double play and the game was over.

Mamaroneck will now take on No. 2 seed Suffern in the sectional semi-finals on Tuesday, with a trip to the sectional finals on the line.

"The biggest thing we have to do is fight hard for seven innings," said Sickles, who went 2-for-3 with an RBI against Mahopac. "If we do that like we did today, we'll be great."