Sports

Stepnoski homers twice, Mercy sweeps

Forgetting the fact that he had slugged a home run in his first at-bat of the game, Pat Stepnoski was sizzling with anger at himself for what he had done in his next two plate appearances.

The Bishop McGann-Mercy High School center fielder had struck out with the bases loaded in the second inning and then grounded out to strand two base runners in the fourth inning of Friday’s home game against the Smithtown Christian Crusaders.

“I get pretty ticked off when I get out, especially when I make a bad out like a strikeout,” Stepnoski said. “That gets on me a little bit.”

Does it help his focus?

“Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t,” he said.

On Friday, it apparently did.

In his fourth at-bat, Stepnoski did what he did in his first, driving the ball out for the second two-home-run game of his career. The sophomore blasted a pair of two-run shots in McGann-Mercy’s 10-1 beating of Smithtown Christian. With Stepnoski’s four runs batted in and five-hit pitching from Al Yakabowski (1-2), the Monarchs (8-3, 6-3 Suffolk County League VIII) swept the three-game series, giving a boost to their playoff prospects.

“I feel a lot more confident at the plate,” said Stepnoski, who belted two homers in a game against The Stony Brook School Bears last year. “I’m seeing the pitching better. I have a better approach at the plate.”

Stepnoski’s two home runs, which gave him three for the season, equalling his total from last year, were nearly identical. They both came on two-strike counts, and they both saw the ball travel an estimated 370 feet, over the center-field fence.

Stepnoski slugged the first homer off an off-speed pitch from Dylan Prince (2-2) for a 2-0 lead in the first inning, and his second drive from a Steven Massaro fastball completed the game’s scoring in the sixth.

“Anything off-speed he just lays back and he just crushes,” Smithtown Christian Coach Craig Gorton said. “He had a good series against us. We tried to move it around, but he pretty much hit it where we pitched it. He’s an aggressive hitter. He goes after you, and he hurt us. He hurt us a lot.”

Stepnoski may be a 10th-grader, but he is also a veteran in his third varsity season.

“It’s his third year in the league, so he’s no secret any more,” McGann-Mercy Coach Ed Meier said. “The more he plays and the more he shows how he can play, the more people are going to know about him.”

To call Stepnoski a power hitter might be selling him short because he can do more than just hit home runs. His batting average, which is hovering around .400, is a testament to that.

“He can hit for average, he can hit for power,” Meier said. “If you make a mistake, he’ll put it over [the fence], but he can fight off tough pitches and put the ball in play, too.”

Stepnoski admitted there are times when he is tempted to swing for the fences, and that doesn’t always work out.

“I’m just trying to hit for average,” he said. “Sometimes I get caught up trying to hit a home run, and that’s when I strike out or ground out or do bad.”

Friday wasn’t a bad day for the Stepnoski family, which lives in Southold. Pat Stepnoski’s brother, Connor, had two hits himself, including a double. McGann-Mercy also received two-hit games from Keith Schroeher, Tom Tenaglia, Rocco Pascale and Ian Traynor as part of its 14-hit barrage. One of Schroeher’s hits was a two-run single that made it 8-1 in the fifth.

It also helps when Pat Stepnoski swings the bat the way he can. “It’s hard for me to see him as a sophomore,” Meier said. “He doesn’t look like a sophomore. He looks more like a senior but, yeah, I’m happy he has the Mercy uniform on.”