Mustang baseball wins four of final six to finish 8-11
By: Rudy Brandl
Practice and game experience led to tremendous improvement for the young Manville High baseball team this spring.
After struggling to a 4-9 start that knocked them out of playoff contention in early May, the Mustangs won four of their final six games to finish with a much more respectable 8-11 record. That strong finish included satisfying road victories at both New Providence and David Brearley.
“They just got a lot more confident,” MHS skipper Steve Venuto said after completing his seventh season with an 11-1 romp in Kenilworth. “They saw a lot of pitching and they hit the ball a lot better as the season went on.”
The MHS offense struggled early in the campaign, especially against experienced pitchers. The perfect illustration of Manville’s improved hitting came in the two Brearley games. Facing the same pitcher, the Mustangs went scoreless in April but erupted for 11 runs in the May finale.
“I knew that was going to happen,” said Venuto, who made some adjustments to the pitching machine and used more live arms in practice. “A lot of the guys came on late with the hitting. They were more aggressive and we got more people on base.”
“Hitting was the biggest improvement,” added junior second baseman Jason Perone, who led the Mustangs with 31 hits, 19 runs and a .484 batting average. “Everybody was a lot more confident hitting once they got used to varsity. They knew what kind of pitching to expect.”
Perone started the season slowly but came on and hit well over .500 in the team’s stretch run. He started pounding out doubles and triples and finished the season on a 12-game hitting streak.
“I had a lot of pressure on me at the beginning,” Perone said. “I mellowed out and just focused. I was seeing the ball a lot better and I got more comfortable at the plate.”
“He’s gotten better each year,” Venuto added. “I really stressed him staying off those high pitches. Jason did a good job staying away from those pitches and he took some walks and hit good pitches. He did a nice job.”
While Perone was the spark out of the leadoff position in the lineup, his teammates also finished the season on a productive note. Four other regulars ended up batting over .300 — Gregg Snyder (.375), Mark Andreychik (.343), Orlando Rodriguez (.339) and Bryan Galumbus (.325). John Anderson (.240) and Nick Conti (.239) struggled for most of the year but finished on hitting streaks of four and six games, respectively.
Everyone hit in the season finale at Brearley, when MHS posted its only five-inning victory of the season. Nine different players collected at least one hit to fuel the assault, which started with two runs in each of the first two innings.
“Every time we scored a few runs in the first few innings, we won the game,” Venuto said. “It was a great way to end the season.”
Venuto enjoyed beating the Bears, who have dominated his baseball and football teams over the years. The season-ending pounding avenged a previous lopsided loss and eased the pain of a few frustrating losses earlier in the season. It also gave ace pitcher Anderson a chance to redeem himself after the Bears hit him hard back in April.
Anderson evened his season record at 5-5 with a solid outing in the finale. He scattered four hits and two walks in five innings with eight strikeouts. Venuto liked the way Anderson used his fastball to put hitters away.
The Mustangs also did the job defensively that day, playing error-free ball to cap the season with an excellent effort in all three major areas of the game. There weren’t many errorless games by the Mustangs, who often hurt themselves with shaky defense.
“We had a lot of young players out there, so the defense wasn’t that good,” Venuto said. “We have to play better.”
The Mustangs had freshman Robert Snyder (.261) at third base, sophomore Rodriguez at short, a new catcher in Tommy Kosensky (.240) and a few new outfielders in Andreychik, Galumbus and Conti. All these players are eligible to return for at least one more high school season.
Other Mustangs who started their varsity careers this year were first baseman/designated hitter Robert Upshaw (.288), outfielder Greg Liszczak (.300) and utility players Scott Jurewicz (.154) and Jeff Morella (.167). Senior Mike Kelman is the only player graduating from the team.
EXTRA BASES — Manville dropped both its Valley Division games to arch-rival Bound Brook and Roselle Park. Each season series included one blowout and one close game… the losses to Bound Brook cost Manville a trip to the Central Jersey Group 1 playoffs… the Mustangs swept Oratory Prep and St. Mary’s and split with New Providence, Dayton and Brearley… North Plainfield proved to be the class of this year’s Valley Division, sweeping the regular season series and eliminating Manville in the Somerset County Tournament.