Mason Ligenza doesn’t remember exactly when it started - but he’s thankful it did.

And he’s not alone.

Tamaqua’s multi-talented baseball star said he started playing the game when he was “five or six years old.” That’s around the same time he started playing basketball.

“When I was younger, I played a lot of baseball, but it wasn’t anything I remember really being into,” Ligenza said. “When I was younger, basketball was probably my favorite sport.

“I don’t remember why or exactly when I started to become more passionate about baseball. It was probably when I was around 13 or 14 years old. All I remember is that baseball went from a game I just played, to a game I became very serious about.”

That change in attitude about baseball fueled a meteoric change in how much time Ligenza spent practicing and working out to improve his game. It has also yielded impressive results.

This past season, Ligenza led Tamaqua in just about every hitting and pitching category.

At the plate, he was the ultimate triple threat - hitting for average and power, while also running wild on the bases. On the mound, he combined huge strikeout numbers with miscroscopic, ERA, WHIP and batting average against numbers.

Ligenza’s ability to dominate a game in a multitude of ways earned him the 2024 Times News/Lehigh Valley Health Network Baseball Player of the Year award.

“Mason did it all for us,” said Tamaqua baseball coach Jeff Reading. “He could impact games with his hitting, his baserunning, his pitching ... I’ve been coaching here 23 years, and I’ve only had a handful of players who put up hitting and pitching numbers that are even comparable to what he did this year.”

The offensive numbers Reading was referring to include a .479 batting average; .581 on base percentage; .959 slugging percentage; 16 extra base hits, including eight home runs; 36 runs scored; and 18 stolen bases in 19 attempts - all of them led the team.

Ligenza’s pitching numbers were just as impressive as he posted a 6-2 record; 1.12 ERA; .988 WHIP; .174 batting average against; and struck out 75 batters in 43.2 innings.

“It was a fun season,” said Ligenza. “We had a young team, but everyone came together and we enjoyed a lot of success. “I don’t think many people expected us to win 15 games and capture a Schuylkill Leagu championship. But we had a lot of really good players, and a lot of different players stepped us for us throughout the season.

“Individual awards are nice and I’m thrilled to be named Player of the Year, but I owe a lot of thanks to my coaches and teammates for putting me in position to win this.”

Despire his modesty, Ligenza did plenty on his own to capture the award - and it didn’t just happen during the Blue Raiders’ games this season. A lot of Ligenza’s success stems from what he did in the offseason.

“In the summer and fall, I played on a couple of travel teams and we played in some really good tournaments against great competition,” said Ligenza. “I also worked on my game pretty regularly at RCS (Russ Canzler Sports) in Hazleton.”

But the area where Ligenza might have made the biggest jump from his freshman and sophomore years to his breakout junior season, was in his strength and agility.

“I decided not to play basketball this past winter, and instead I dedicated myself to getting in the gym and working on getting stronger and faster, said Ligenza. “It was a tough decision because I liked basketball, my friends on the team, and my coaches, but I talked it over with my family and decided that’s what I would do - and although I missed basketball, I really believe it was a huge benefit for me to work on getting prepared for baseball instead.”

The results would seem to validate Ligenza’s choice.

“When he told me his plans, I wanted to make sure he had thought it through and didn’t make any rash decision,” said Reading. “You’re only a high school student once and you can’t get this time back, so I wanted him to be sure he wasn’t going to regret not playing basketball.

“But Mason knew what he wanted to do and what he felt was best for him, and he really committed and dedicated himself to his plan. It was obvious from our first workout that Mason had taken his game to another level. I remember just hearing the ball come off his bat at that first practice ... you could tell that it just had a different sound to it.”

With one more season of high school ball to play and having already made a verbal commitment to Division I Pitt, Ligenza has no plans of slowing down - as he has already begun summer workouts in preparation for an even better 2025 high school season.

And even if he doesn’t remember exactly why or when it happened, Ligenza is thankful he eventually found a passion for baseball.

Count his teammates and coaches at Tamaqua, along with those associated with the Pitt baseball program, among those who join him in being thankful for that passion.