Mustangs complete amazing baseball rally

Venuto fired-up after win at Hillside

By: Rudy Brandl
   Manville High head baseball coach Steve Venuto was looking for something to spark his team. The Mustangs were mired in a three-game losing streak and very close to losing their fourth in a row last Thursday afternoon at Hillside.
   Venuto couldn’t have asked for anything better than what happened in the top of the seventh inning. With the state playoffs coming up, this season was about to go in the tank. That’s when the Mustangs turned it on.
   Manville staged an amazing rally, scoring five runs with two outs to force extra innings before eventually capturing a wild 9-5 victory with four more runs in the ninth. After being shut down for 6Ò innings, the Mustangs rose from the dead to produce one of the most dramatic moments in Venuto’s 13 years at the helm.
   "It’s unbelievable, I’m still shaking my head," Venuto said afterward. "I’ve never seen anything like it."
   Robert Wood, who was on the hook for the loss on the mound, started the surge with a monster solo home run to deep left field. Wood raced around the bases and gave his team a little momentum.
   Hillside lefty Danny Vela suddenly had trouble finding the strike zone after Wood’s blast. He walked Pat Horner, Tommy Rock and Jeff Opachinski to load the bases, but there were still two outs.
   Chris Weber, back in the lineup for the first time in two weeks, marked his return with a huge two-run double to the right-center field gap. Anthony Palovick came through with a clutch two-run single to left to tie the score at 5-5.
   "They just started battling at the plate," Venuto said. "He was beating us pretty bad for 6Ò innings. He was shutting us down. They just started scrapping up there."
   Wood stopped the Comets in the bottom of the seventh, which was stopped by a 30-minute weather delay. Had the game not continued, the Mustangs would have lost. Mother Nature cooperated and the teams returned to the field.
   After a scoreless eighth, the Mustangs went to work in the top of the ninth. Rock led off with a single and Venuto inserted Jonathan Andrade as a pinch runner so Rock could get ready to pitch the bottom of the ninth. Opachinski promptly delivered an RBI double that gave the Mustangs their first lead of the day.
   The rally wasn’t over. Weber singled and Palovick walked to load the bases. Dennis Petrone followed with a two-run single and Joe Burnett provided a little extra insurance with an RBI hit.
   Wood (5-2) picked up the win with eight innings of solid pitching. He was particularly effective late in the game, blanking Hillside in the sixth, seventh and eighth frames. Wood struck out 11 men and walked only two while allowing four hits. Rock gave up one hit but fanned two batters to wrap it up in the ninth.
   "Baseball changes in a split-second," Venuto said. "I was wondering what was going on, what we were going to do. I didn’t know what I was going to do to get these guys going with the states coming up. All of a sudden we started getting cranked up. I’ve never seen a rally like it."
   Venuto is hoping the Mustangs can carry this great momentum into the Central Jersey Group 1 playoffs. He’ll certainly go into the post-season on a high.
   "These guys just gave me a load of energy," he said. "I’m on Cloud Nine. I’m at a loss for words."