Boys Basketball: Yorktown Falls to Mahopac

The Yorktown boys basketball team (11-5)  played in an incredible atmosphere on Feb. 9 when it hosted Mahopac (13-3) in a huge league game on its senior night.

After seniors Chris Mosca, Kevin Bautista, Alex Poritzky and Jordan Moody (a McDonald's All-American nominee), were introduced to the crowd, students in Yorktown’s well renowned “The Crop,” all ran at once into the stands which electrified the standing-room only crowd at Yorktown High School.

“Our fans were unbelievable,” Yorktown coach Steve Veteri said.

So was the Huskers come-back attempt. Trailing 51-39 after Mahopac’s Ryan Wagner hit a trey from the left-corner with 4:46 left in the game, the Huskers furiously rallied and pulled to within one, but a 3-pointer by the Indians’ Anthony Annunziata essentially sealed the visitors' 60-52 triumph.

Yorktown is still in first place in the league by a half game. Each team has lost two league games but Mahopac still has two more league contests to play while Yorktown has just one.

Helping pull Mahopac closer to the host in the standings was Aunniziata’s brazen trey. That came after a free throw by Moody, to put Mahopac up 56-52 with 1:17 left to play.

“Mahopac is a good team,” Veteri said. “They are coming into our gym, it’s our senior night. That’s a big three at that point. It’s a one-point game and we left him open. The game was right there for us.”

Early on it looked like Mahopac was going to run away from the Huskers as it led 18-5 at the end of the first quarter. Wagner led the Tribe in that quarter with 12 points.

“We got overwhelmed by the way the fans came in, they have never done that before,” Veteri said. “We got a little caught up in that and just weren’t playing smart basketball. But our team fights. I don’t care what the score is, they keep playing hard.”

Playing hard and producing was Moody, who scored a game-high 32 points. Moody had to battle not only the tough Mahopac defense but the loud Mahopac student body, which made the short trip in full force.

“When you are on this team for four years and you are a captain for two years, you’re an all-section player and you got opposing fans chanting overrated, this and that and getting into you, he feeds off that,” Veteri said of Moody. “He rose and stepped up to the occasion. He got us back in this game just like he did the other night against Carmel when we went into overtime. I can’t ask him to do anymore.”

Moody was part of a senior class that Veteri won’t soon forget.

“They put a lot of hours, a lot of hard work in here,” Veteri said. “It’s a chance to go out maybe once last time and put on the home uniform, stepping out on the floor and try to make something happen.”

Whether those seniors will get to play one more game on their home floor in the sectionals will depend on how the Huskers perform in their last two regular-season games.

Yorktown will travel to White Plains at 4:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 11 in a non-league game and then play a league game at Brewster at 6:15 p.m. Monday, Feb. 14.

“There is so much of log jam going on right now with teams at 9, 10, 11, 12 wins, anything can happen,” Veteri said.

POINT TOTALS

Yorktown-Jordan Moody (32), Alex Poritzky (12), Donta Dixon (4), Kevin Bautista (2), Chris Schmitz (2)