Heartbreak for Wolf Pac in Section 1 final

It was after midnight Sunday, May 31, when the second-seeded Wolf Pac forced a deciding elimination game in their battle for Section 1 Class AA supremacy with top-seeded Rye, the reigning Class A champions.

The two state-ranked powers – Rye No. 13 and Mahopac No. 24 – dove deep into the nighttime air in a schedule that pushed teenagers into the kind of hours usually reserved for cram sessions and dream cycles.

But those dreams turned to nightmares for Mahopac, whose championship hopes would be put on hold for yet another day, the same day, actually, when the Wolf Pac (19-7) had the momentum of a 12-0 ‘mercy’ victory after midnight Sunday behind them.

The Pac could not ride that wave into Sunday night’s stunning 5-2 championship loss, in which the Wolf Pac had the Garnets down to their final strike on at least three occasions before the wheels fell off the wagon in the top of the seventh.

Rye plated four unanswered runs. Instead of celebrating Mahopac’s first sectional title since 1997, the Wolf Pac players were trying desperately to maintain composure in a situation gone terribly awry.

“Yeah, this was a tough loss,” Mahopac coach Anthony Nappi admitted. “In the end, someone has to lose, unfortunately we were on the wrong end of it.”

Mahopac reliever Jeremy ‘Jerm’ O’Keefe took the hard-luck defeat, a loss that never should have been. O’Keefe fanned the first two Garnets he faced in the bottom of the seventh, and then induced an infield grounder from Rye’s No. 9 hitter. It was a ball the Wolf Pac typically gobbles up, but the gobble turned to bobble and the defending Class A champion Garnets had life, by centimeters, literally, on the play at first base.

The Wolf Pac bench had already started to charge out of its dugout to celebrate its first section title since the late great RHP Chris Tantalos led them back-to-back.

When you give a team like Rye an inch, they’re likely to take a mile – which is what the Garnets did. The error proved costly but the Wolf Pac still had a chance to pick their teammate up and get out with the win.

“We didn’t pick him up,” Nappi said. “We could have and should have.”

Again, the Wolf Pac were a strike away when O’Keefe missed on a 3-2 count, setting up first and second. A wild pitch advanced both runners. An intentional pass followed to load the bases for Lucas London, who was hit by a pitch that drew the ire of every Mahopac fan in attendance because it looked like a clean pitch into the glove of catcher Drew Lichtenberger.

But HBP was the call and it tied the game at 2-2.

Garnet lefty Jackson Pineault followed and fell behind 0-2 in the count before stroking a sinking liner to left-center that had plenty of tailspin away from CF Nate Mascoll, whose diving attempt was just short. There’s not an outfielder in Section 1 that could have caught that shot. Nonetheless, Mascoll took the loss as hard as anyone.

“Just a perfectly placed ball, a couple steps away,” the All-Section Mascoll said. “Nothing you can do there.”

Every Wolf Pac player, fan, mom, dad and grandparent was in shock. For the second night in a row, Rye entered the final inning with just one hit. But on the verge of elimination, Rye did what Rye often does, and not just in baseball.

“We have a lot of respect for Rye,” Nappi said. “But this [Mahopac] senior group was a lot of fun, hardworking and genuine kids. I am gonna miss these guys and truthfully they deserved a better ending than that. Baseball is a great teacher of life: Things don’t always go your way and you oftentimes need to regroup and pick up the pieces. There is no doubt all these guys are all going to be successful in whatever it is they choose to do. I told them, when they were freshmen I demanded hard work out of them whenever we got together, and they gave me that and more. They gave me memories, laughs and experiences that will last a lifetime.”

Mahopac starter RJ Grabeklis did all he could, delivering a solid one-run, four-frame effort before giving way to O’Keefe.

Mahopac took a 1-0 lead when Mascoll doubled and junior Orion Ortiz singled. With runners on first and third, junior Jake Cotter grounded into a force play, which plated Mascoll. Senior SS Vince Cataldo drove in the go-ahead run with a sac fly in the fifth, but the Pac bats weren’t nearly as hot as the night before and that was all they could muster. Mahopac left a combined four runners on base in the fifth and sixth.

On short rest late Saturday night (around 10 p.m., three hours later than scheduled, due to 10- and 16-inning games before them), senior captain Nick Masciarelli demanded the ball, kind of knowing he would pitch into the wee hours of Sunday morning, but not caring one bit. The Wagner-bound hurler’s performance was the stuff of legend: five innings of one-hit ball, topped off with 15 strikeouts for the 15 outs needed to deliver one of the greatest pitching efforts in Section 1 playoff history.

“Masciarelli, on three days’ rest, pitched the best game I’ve ever seen him throw,” Nappi said. “This includes a no-hitter in the playoffs. That Rye lineup is no joke and he maneuvered through it with ease. The kid is special, short rest doesn’t make a difference to him. I think he’s the most competitive kid I ever coached.”

After a three-hour delay, Masciarelli dialed in early, doing so after All-NYS C Drew Lichtenberger crushed a first-inning, two-run dinger that sliced through the chilly air like a hot knife through butter, setting a tone Rye could not match or undo.

“Drew’s at bat really set the tone,” Nappi said. “He let everyone breathe and ignited the fire that was just waiting to be lit for us. These kids showed a lot of toughness to be able to weather the unfortunate circumstances of waiting and not knowing if we were going to play last night. I’m proud of all of them.”

Contributions came in all forms. Senior DH Matt Bentivenga (2 RBI, 2 hits, run) stroked an RBI double to make it 4-0 in the second, Cataldo (2 runs) followed with an RBI single, 5-0, and the scrappy Ortiz (3 hits, 4 RBI) made it 7-0 with a two-run single. Mascoll tacked on a fielder’s choice RBI. Ortiz, Cotter and Masciarelli (2) each drove home additional runs, leading some to think it was time to pull Masciarelli and save him to close the next day.

“I had many people asking me if I debated taking Masciarelli out early in preparation for the next game,” Nappi said. “Truthfully, the only reason 7-0 felt like an enormous lead was because he was on the hill. Credit to our team for putting us in a position where we could have that conversation.”

Getting to the finals was anything but easy with Yorktown posing as a major semifinal obstacle the Wolf Pac would overcome upon Cotter’s game-winning, walk-off sac fly. It plated pinch-runner Matt Asadoorian, after he ran for Lichtenberger (who led the rally with a leadoff double), to seal a 4-3 win behind three hurlers: Grabeklis, Mike D’Amore and O’Keefe. The latter closed it out with 2.1 innings of scoreless relief and four whiffs.

“After the tough loss against them last week (in the quarters), we knew we had to prove ourselves,” O’Keefe said. “Against a team like Yorktown, it doesn’t take much to get fired up as well. It was also our last home game and everyone contributed a significant amount, which was great for our confidence. The bench was loud, the outfield was on point, and the student section was just the cherry on top.”

Another cherry was the rare 5-6-2 putout that flicked off Masciarelli’s glove into the hands of the steady Cataldo, who fired home for a strike to Lichtenberger to preserve the tie.

“Vince and his game-saving play got us fired up and fortunately it carried into our offense,” O’Keefe said. “It was a group effort from everyone and that type of chemistry helps everyone’s confidence and makes us able to win tough games like we did today.”

While it didn’t turn out their way in the end – and 1997 is still a thing – the 2026 Wolf Pac returned to the sectional finals for a second year in a row. And after losing this incredible senior class, getting back for a third straight year will be a tall order for Nappi’s 2027 Wolf Pac.