Just call him Slugbauer:
Lugbauer leads Mahopac to Tantalos tourney title

 

Mahopac 2B Jon Irwin turns a 4-3 twin killing on Yorktown’s Chris Murphy in an 11-9 Mahopac win

Story & photo by Ray Gallagher
The skies brightened and the sun shone brilliantly at Mahopac High last Saturday where they resurrected the fond memory of Christopher Dean Tantalos, the Indian hurler who slung Mahopac to a pair of sectional titles in the mid-’90s before his tragic passing in 2000 after a tryout with the Florida Marlins.

Coach Frank Moloney’s Indians (10-8) did the Tantalos family proud, winning the memorial tournament for a third-straight year by taking down both Yorktown (by an 11-9 count in the opener) and Fox Lane (by a 9-6 score in the title game) in a pair of tough, hard-fought victories. Somers defeated Yorktown in the consolation game, 11-5.

Mahopac catcher Myck Lugbauer had himself a day, going 3 for 4, with a double, triple and two RBI for the Indians.

Nick Barbalato smoked a two-run double in support of winning pitcher Anthony Castilitto, who allowed just one hit in four innings of relief. The game was not a crisply played game, as the Indians committed three errors, allowing the 16-5 Foxes to hang around. Fox Lane, which won the League I-D title and could come in as a No.2 seed in the Class AA sectional tournament, hasn’t seen the competition Mahopac has in League I-C where defending sectional champion RCK, John Jay EF, Carmel and Arlington provide Mahopac with stiffer challenges on a regular basis.

Nobody has done better against the competition that Lugbauer, who upped his average to .538 and his slugging percentage to 1.000 with four homers, three triples and six doubles. The Maine-bound senior is No.1 in slugging percentage in Section 1 and No.6 in average.

Against Yorktown, Brian Gilroy went 2 for 2 with three RBI for Mahopac, which held on despite a furious comeback attempt from Yorktown, which saw 2B Chris Montesano tag a pair of hits and three RBI for the Huskers.

In the consolation game, Somers 2B Mike Levine went 3 for 5, crushing a pair of triples while Lou Gaudio added two RBI for the Tuskers. Yorktown SS Zach Reynolds went 3 for 4 with a couple of ribs.

Afterward, the talk centered on Mahopac and its chances of surviving a brutal stretch of games, including RCK and Carmel, which will make it tough to stay above .500, which means the Indians will not have a high seed entering the Class AA tourney.

“We’re not satisfied where we’re at,” Moloney admitted. “I think our program is not like a lot of other programs. Our kids have worked hard, and you can see it’s getting better, but you can also see we’re still making silly mistakes.

We need to eliminate the mental mistakes, whether we’re young or not. The physical mistakes are something you can’t do anything about. That’s part of baseball, but it’s the mental stuff that really bothers me. I think bit by bit, game by game we’re coming together as a team. Our sophomores aren’t really sophomores any more and the juniors aren’t really juniors. At this point in the season, they’re all veterans, and they should be above the mental mistakes by now. We’re got a grueling stretch of games heading into the playoffs and we hope to survive that and make a strong run in the playoffs. We’ve played as tough a schedule as you can possibly play and we should qualify better than .500. It’s time to play Mahopac baseball.”

Throughout history, that has meant nothing short of a Final 4 appearance in many, many seasons.