baseball glove : baseball playoffs

THIELLS — More than almost any other game, baseball is predicated on team play.

To actually see a single player turn a game into his showcase is rare, unlike a 30-point scorer in basketball or a 200-yard rusher in football. Even the most dominant pitchers need help from the bats and gloves behind them.

North Rockland's Mike Mergenthaler did his best to prove the thinking untrue. Did he benefit from good defense and a game-winning RBI single from his teammate? Of course, but it was Mergenthaler, as a pitcher and as a hitter, who did much of the damage yesterday as the sixth-seeded Red Raiders beat No. 11 Mahopac 3-2 in the opening round of the Class AA playoffs.

Mergenthaler, a junior lefty, allowed just three hits and two runs in 6 1/3 innings and had an RBI double and an RBI triple. That effort led North Rockland (16-9) into tomorrow's quarterfinals at home against No. 19 Mamaroneck at noon.

Leadoff hitter Pat Furey started both of the Red Raiders' scoring rallies with singles up the middle. Each time, Furey moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Dan Scanlon, which set up No. 3 hitter Mergenthaler with a runner in scoring position.

It first happened in the third inning when Mergenthaler ripped an outside fastball just beyond the glove of Indians first baseman Chris Brady for a run-scoring double. Then, in the fifth, Mergenthaler crushed a fastball into deep right to give his team a 2-0 lead.

"He's our (No.) 3 hitter," Red Raiders coach Tom Lynch said of Mergenthaler. "That's what we expect him to do."

One batter after Mergenthaler's RBI triple, Ray Gregg's bloop single scored him with what proved to be the winning run. To maintain that lead, however, Mergenthaler needed to pitch out of jams in the third, fourth and sixth innings.

Mergenthaler has recently refined his mechanics and said it's boosted his confidence, tight spot or otherwise.

"I knew I was going to pitch really well today," he said.

The only Mahopac hitter to strike against Mergenthaler before the seventh was catcher Myckie Lugbauer, who had two hits in three at-bats to that point.

Mergenthaler said he made a concerted effort to retire the batters in front of Lugbauer — the Indians' powerful No. 3 hitter — in order to limit his RBI situations.

"I really focused on their (Nos.) 9-1-2 batters and tried to get them out," he said.

In the seventh, Mergenthaler put two men on and was lifted for reliever Nick Dowen. Dowen recorded a ground out, but then Lugbauer lined the first pitch he saw for a two-run single. Yet Dowen survived, snaring a comebacker from the next batter, Brady, to end the game.

Mahopac coach Frank Moloney, whose team was the runner-up last season, thought his team squandered runs early that cost it the game.

"We left eight guys on base, so we had our opportunities too," he said. "They executed and we didn't. That's the bottom line."

By JOSH THOMSON