The Marlboro Iron Dukes were glad they had some runs left for the second game.
After scoring 24 runs in their win against the Wallkill Panthers to start the day, the Division II champion Iron Dukes won their first Mid Hudson Athletic League baseball championship since 2019 with a 6-1 win over the Division III champion Spackenkill Spartans on Saturday at Cantine Field in Saugerties.

“We haven’t won in a while,” Marlboro senior shortstop Mitch Neer said. “These are big wins. The first game took all our energy, but we came back and fought. It took a lot out of us. We had a lot of contributors and we’re ready for sections.”

After their offensive explosion in the first game, it took a few innings for the Iron Dukes to get their offense going until Neer came to bat with runners on second and third in the third inning. He drilled a base hit into left field past Spackenkill shortstop Linus Oudom, scoring Sal Montaperto, Jr., and Matt Ciarimboli for the first two runs of the game.

“It felt great,” Neer said “It felt like our momentum was going forward from that. Anything negative was in the past and we just knew this game was ours from the start.”

The Spartans tried to answer in the top of the fourth. Dylan Boenig reached on an error by Ciarimboli at second base and then came around to score on a single by Martin McQuade to cut the Iron Dukes’ lead in half.

However, freshman pitcher Liam Correa finished his fourth inning of work with two runners on base when he struck out Nate Yots.

More to the point, it was Correa’s fourth inning of work in the second game. He also threw 1 2/3 innings to finish the second game and was brought back after the Iron Dukes won that game 24-14 in 6 innings.

“It just shows that we have faith in our guys,” Marlboro coach John Morrissey said. “We have faith in the young guys coming up and joining the team. We had a bunch of different pitchers throwing today, and when you have a staff that can put it together, it’s fun to coach.”

The Iron Dukes answered the Spartans with four more runs in the bottom of the fourth.

With the bases loaded and one out, Justin Piscopo drove in a run with a fielder’s choice, and Ciarimboli drove in a run with a single. Owen Schlager and Tommy Benfer drew bases loaded walks to complete the inning.

Dan Conrad went the rest of the way with three scoreless innings.

“The last few appearances he’s had, we’ve been so proud of him,” Morrissey said. “It helps when we have that motivation to get these guys in and we have that confidence. It’s nice to be proud of the guys that work hard.”

The championship win was a relief after the high-octane first game that saw the Iron Dukes pound out 18 hits in six innings.

Owen Schlagler had five hits, four runs scored, and three RBIs and Mike Divesti had two hits, two RBIs and a run scored. Sal Montaperto, Jr. had two hits, three runs scored and an RBI. John Ryder had three hits and four RBIs, and Benfer had a double, two runs scored and three RBIs.

It was a welcome win after the Panthers walked the Iron Dukes off earlier in the season.

“That felt amazing,” Neer said. “We knew we wanted to win and get a little revenge. It was nice, but we knew it was going to be tough.”

The Iron Dukes will finished the regular season on Monday with a home game against the Millbrook Blazers, and are waiting for the Section 9 Class A tournament seeds to be announced on Thursday.

“We’ve always got to keep our foot on the gas,” Neer said. “We can’t let up and we’re going to play our best game and keep that rolling into sectionals and hopefully states.”