By Jeff Appelblatt
The Greater Middlesex Conference (GMC) Coaches Association will be holding a charity all-star doubleheader June 12 at the Raymond J. Clipperly Field on the Middlesex County Vocational and Technical School in East Brunswick beginning at 11 a.m.
Proceeds from the games will benefit the families of Ben Lepisto and Shane O’Donnell, who were both diagnosed this year with different forms of pediatric cancer.
Lepisto is a freshman at Woodbridge High School. He ran track in the winter before trying out for the freshman baseball team. Lepisto made the squad, but he hit a wall; he was struggling to see the ball at the plate and in the field. The Woodbridge resident decided he was better off turning back to track and field. But one day of practice took a bad turn, as Lepisto got so sick that his father took him to the hospital, where doctors realized the 14-year-old had a large, cancerous brain tumor.
The tumor was removed from Lepisto’s brain soon after it was found, but the surgery was not the finish line. Surgery was followed by physical and speech therapy before radiation and chemotherapy.
O’Donnell, or most known to many as “Baby Shane,” was diagnosed at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia with Stage IV, high-risk neuroblastoma. The 16-month-old had a large tumor in his abdomen. It took five rounds of chemotherapy, numerous blood transfusions and surgery to remove the tumor. More heavy doses of chemotherapy, along with transplants of his own stem cells have followed. Nonetheless, the boy’s father, Mike O’Donnell, the athletic director at Middlesex High School, said his son is at least as cheerful as the common infant.
“Shane has been nothing short of a champion,” O’Donnell, the former baseball coach at Middlesex said. “He is very active and loves to play baseball and basketball every chance he gets.”
For kids with a love for sports clearly in them, the idea of baseball games in their honor makes sense.
Woodbridge High School has done its best to raise money for Lepisto and his family, highlighted by a group named “Barrons for Ben,” which held a spaghetti dinner fundraiser at the school in May. But the upcoming all-star games will give Middlesex County as a whole a chance to support a few of its neighbors during their battles.
“I think it’s great that a showcase event such as the GMC Baseball All-Star game is being used to generate funding for both the Lepisto family and Mike O’Donnell and his family,” Woodbridge athletic director Joseph Ward said. “As big as [New Jersey] and Middlesex County [are], [Middlesex] is actually a small community that is happy to jump in and help each other at a time of need.”
At the same time, plenty of people don’t want to forget the event will be the final chance of the year for the locals to see some of the best baseball players in the area. In fact, the first game of the day will have three Woodbridge standouts in it: Harry Rutkowski, Justin Silva and Zach Joe. Metuchen High School will also have Kyle Harry, Matt Volpe and Mike Lapczynski playing in the game.
And the second game — the senior all-star game — will be the last chance for those in Middlesex to see players playing as high school students. Edison High School will send out Brandon Radd, Justin Hernandez and Lenin Gomez for that one. Meanwhile, Nick Bradshaw, who will attend the University of Delaware in the fall, and Kyle Mortensen, who will go to a Penn State University satellite school, will represent Woodbridge.
Woodbridge coach Lou Urbano plans to be there for the final chance he’ll have to watch some of the best players from his 18-10 team this year.
“I plan to attend,” the coach said a week before the games. “It’s an honor for them. They’re being rewarded for a great season.”
Urbano, who notched his 300th career victory as a high school coach in May when Rutkowski threw a 12-strikeout gem in the first round of the NJSIAA North Jersey, Section II, Group IV tournament, is eager to see what his players can do against the best of the best in the GMC.
Of course, he wishes he got to see his own squad last longer in Group IV play, but a second-round matchup for the Barrons with Westfield High School wound up too much to handle. Westfield defeated the Barrons, 10-4, ending Woodbridge’s season.
With the 2016 campaign behind them, a bunch of Barrons, Bulldogs and Eagles, along with another 70 student-athletes, will be eligible to play in the June 12 games. But Urbano can’t wait to see his own seniors on the field one last time.
He and so many can’t wait for the GMC Baseball All-Star Game June 12 at 3 p.m.