Anderson, Lukacs lead way to 4-1 start
By: Rudy Brandl
Manville High baseball coach Steve Venuto always emphasizes the importance of getting off to a good start.
The veteran skipper likes a little breathing room between the wins and losses on his team’s ledger in April. Always with an eye toward the state playoff qualifying deadline, Venuto prefers to have a margin for error to make sure his team will make the states.
Venuto must like his team’s chances of qualifying for the Central Jersey Group 1 playoffs for the ninth consecutive year a current school-record by plenty after his Mustangs won two more games last week to improve to 4-1. If MHS holds serve as expected at home against Roselle and Newark Central this week, the team will be closing in on clinching a state bid by the end of April.
"We’re playing pretty good baseball, I can’t complain," said Venuto, who was so upbeat at last Thursday’s practice session that he didn’t even mind a five-day layoff from games. "We have a little cushion. Now we finally get a little homestand."
The Mustangs have picked up three of their first four victories on the road. Most of those wins have come thanks to solid pitching and defense, but the team finally broke through offensively last week with a 7-4 win at South Hunterdon and 8-1 rout at Hillside.
"Once somebody gets a hit, you just feed off it," senior pitcher/second baseman Steve Anderson said. "It gets the team momentum going. It’s a domino effect."
Manville scored in four different innings in both victories, and they just happened to be the same ones the first, second, third and seventh. So, the team jumped out to early leads and added a little late insurance to help the pitchers coast to complete game victories.
Anderson (2-0) was sharp early before giving up some late damage against South, while fellow senior righty Ernie Lukacs (2-1) was dominant throughout at Hillside. Both pitchers went the distance without surrendering a walk. Anderson fanned seven, while Lukacs struck out a season-high 13 men.
"The pitching was a little better," Venuto said. "We really didn’t walk guys and we won the first inning."
Manville scored four times in the first inning at South. Lukacs walked and Anderson singled him home with one out. Mike Chabra, who reached base six times in eight trips to the plate without a base hit last week, walked with two outs to keep the rally going. Kyle Sopko smacked an RBI single and Robert Wood laced a two-run double.
Anderson, who went 3-for-3 with two RBI, helped himself again with a run-scoring single in the second. Greg Babich, making his first start of the year, singled home catcher Jeff Opachinski in the third. Sopko doubled home Chabra, who had been hit by a pitch, for the team’s final run in the seventh.
Tommy Rock, the team’s new leadoff man, did some damage in the game at Hillside. He opened the game with a walk and scored the first run on a double by Lukacs. Rock later singled in both runs in the second inning and was on base 4-of-5 times.
The Mustangs made it 5-0 with two runs in the top of the third. Anderson walked and Opachinski singled to set the table. Sopko walked to load the bases with one out. Pat Horner walked to force in a run and a fielder’s choice by Wood scored the second run of the frame.
Lukacs rapped a two-run single and Anderson plated the team’s final run with a base hit in the seventh. Lukacs went 3-for-5 with two RBI and Anderson went 2-for-3 with an RBI for the winners. Rock, Lukacs and Anderson, the top three batters in the MHS lineup, were on base 11-of-15 times in the game. Manville took advantage of 11 walks.
"We got more walks and that was important," Venuto said. "We needed to get on base and we ran a little bit."
Venuto likes to be aggressive on the bases with the speed he has on this year’s team. With experienced hurlers like Anderson and Lukacs on the mound, the Mustangs will be very tough to beat when they score runs like they did last week.
"We’re coming along slowly but surely," Anderson said. "We have a lot of young kids starting to get experience for future years. We have to work on fundamentals and we’ll be a really good team."
After this week’s mini-homestand, the Mustangs go back to the road, but not very far, when they face rival Bound Brook next Tuesday. The Crusaders have been hitting the ball well but don’t have as much pitching as Manville. That should be a very interesting battle between two old rivals.

