McAuliffe comes through for Yorktown

Yorktown shortstop Darren McAuliffe brings the same intensity to each at bat, and the game against visiting Cortlandt B Thursday evening at Yorktown High School was no exception.

"I usual have the same approach for every single at bat," McAuliffe said. "You look for a pitch you want to hit, when you get it, stay relaxed, bring your hands through and pull."

McAuliffe showed how successful that approach can be by going 2 for 3 with two RBI, including a home run, in Yorktown's 5-4 victory in the Westchester Putnam Baseball Association's 18-and-under division.

"Darren has played really well all summer," Yorktown coach Sean Kennedy said. "He's had a really good summer offensively and defensively. He's been a very good player for us. I am very happy with how he has played."

After Cortlandt B (6-6) took a 1-0 lead in its half of the first, Yorktown (8-4) tied it up in the bottom of the inning on a lead-off home run to left field by McAuliffe. Anthony Bambach then doubled and scored on Chris Mosca's single to put the host up 2-1.

Yorktown increased its lead to 3-1 in the third inning when McAuliffe led off with a single and was eventually knocked in on a base hit to left field by Joe Frederick.

"In all games you really want to build every single inning no matter what," McAuliffe said. "You want to step on their throats, make sure you get on top of them and they can't come back. As a team, we always try, no matter what we're doing, to get on, score, help out the team, do our job and build on the lead."

Unfortunately for Yorktown, Cortlandt came back with single runs in the fifth and sixth innings to tie the game at three.

Yorktown, though, re-took the lead in the bottom of the sixth. Mike Moskowitz led off with a walk, Steve Kultzow sacrificed and reached based on an error before Matt Seger walked to load the bases.

McAuliffe came up clutch again when he hit a sacrifice fly that drove in Moskowitz and put Yorktown back up by one.

"In that situation, the infield was in, " McAuliffe said. "When I got up there, I had the same approach as always, look for the pitch to hit but try to get the ball far enough so the runner on third could score. I got a pitch high enough that I was able to put it to right field which enabled our guy to score."

Yorktown then added a necessary insurance run when Bambach singled in Kultzow, putting Yorktown up 5-3. The insurance run was necessary because Cortlandt added a run in the seventh.

"We feel pretty good right now," Kennedy said. "I got a good bunch of guys. We haven't played to our abilities yet but we're getting some clutch hits when we needed them. It just seems like when we need it, we are able to turn it on right now but it doesn't make me feel real comfortable. I would like us to play seven innings and start to play some real good games. We kind of lose focus and make some mental errors but we do come through so far when we need to."