Venuto: I’ll take the heat
By: Rudy Brandl
Manville High baseball coach Steve Venuto is big enough to take the heat when his team isn’t playing well. After suffering back-to-back lopsided losses that knocked his team out of the Somerset County Tournament and Valley Division race, Venuto looked in the mirror instead of criticizing his players.
"I’m the head coach, I’m the captain of the ship," Venuto said. "Blame me. I don’t like to lose and I’m not happy. Maybe I didn’t have them prepared."
The Mustangs were sailing along in their county battle against Ridge until the visitors piled on 11 runs in the fourth inning en route to a mercy rule blowout. Three days later, again on their home field, the Mustangs were battered by their division leading rivals from Dayton. The Bulldogs, who will be playing in Saturday’s night’s Union County finals, rolled to a 15-1 victory in five innings.
"Two lumps in a row, we’re a little down," Venuto said. "It happens. Look around the area."
Venuto has been around long enough to take these defeats in stride. Take a look at Hillsborough, a powerful Group 4 team that opened the season at 8-0 and was ranked third in the state polls in late April. Suddenly, the Raiders dropped five of their next seven games and it cost them the division title and state ranking. Hillsborough got back on the winning track with a 3-1 victory over Ridge in last Saturday’s SCT quarterfinals, a place the Mustangs were hoping to be.
"The other teams are hitting and scoring runs," Venuto said. "It’s a little mixture of things. We’re playing better teams but we’re making errors. When you do that, you throw more pitches and you give teams more opportunities to hit the ball."
Manville committed seven errors in the 10 innings played during the consecutive mercy rule losses. The team also managed just one run in each game against good pitchers from Ridge and Dayton.
The Mustangs opened the season riding high, winning eight of their first nine games before a tough 3-1 home loss to Oratory Prep. MHS responded with a 14-9 road win at St. Mary’s, but that game marked the beginning of a tough stretch for the team’s pitching staff. Senior right-handers Steve Anderson and Ernie Lukacs, practically untouchable in April, have been hit for most of the 35 runs in the last three games entering this week’s play.
Manville hasn’t been affected by bad weather and rainouts have not created pitching problems, allowing Venuto to stick with his top guns most of the time. However, the recent blowouts have given Venuto the chance to mix in younger arms like Tommy Rock, Kyle Sopko and Robert Wood, the team’s pitchers of the future.
"I’ve been fortunate with the weather and Steve and Ernie have been going the distance," Venuto said. "We’ve been a little shaky the last few outings. We all know pitching is the name of the game."
Venuto gave his team last Thursday off in honor of the program’s ninth consecutive year qualifying for the state playoffs. The Mustangs returned to practice Friday and their skipper was ready to start a new winning streak.
"There will never be a panic button with me," Venuto said. "We could go out and win six in a row."
The upcoming schedule, starting with this week’s games vs. Hillside and Roselle, is a little more friendly. The Mustangs won’t win a conference or county title, but they can still finish second in the Valley and are determined to make a splash in the Central Jersey Group 1 playoffs.
Manville (9-4) will begin next week traveling to Newark on consecutive days, taking on Technology and Central before returning home for the regular season finale against Bound Brook. The CJ 1 game, against an opponent to be determined by the seeding, is scheduled for May 27.
"We haven’t played four games in a week the last two years," Venuto said. "There could be a fatigue factor. We have to be ready to go."

