Madison U-14 Baseball Drew Tough Task vs. West Essex

Unfortunately for the Madison team, not even a broken toe could slow down Anthony Lapari on Monday.

The third baseman drove in five runs to lead the West Essex Under-14 baseball team to a 16-0 win in five innings over Madison at Mountain Avenue Field.

"The kid can absolutely drop bombs up there," West Essex coach Tom Carragher said. "If I know he's coming up, I'm not gonna try and take the bat out of his hands. I'm just going to let him keep plugging away and good things will happen."

Lapari jump-started the Knights' offense, which scored all 16 runs in the first three innings off Madison pitchers Zack Evans and Blake Fielding.

West Essex speedster Lenny Mendola reached base with an infield hit on a drag bunt in the first inning. Mendola then stole second and third and scored on a Lapari RBI single. The Knights tacked on another run in the frame on a Mark Dignazio RBI groundout.

In the second inning, Lapari drove a ball into the right-field gap for a two-run triple that scored Mendola and Jack Limongelli. Lapari then scored on an errant throw to third base. Lapari's double in the third inning then drove in two more runs.

"I kept my head in, just looking for line drives, not home runs," Lapari said.

Lapari and the Knights wore down an undermanned Madison team that only brought nine players to the field.

"We only have 12 players and tonight we only had nine, so I told the players every game everyone's going to be playing a lot," Madison coach Anthony Abilo said. "There's not going to be substitutes, everyone's going to be in the lineup and they got to be ready to play."

But West Essex starting pitcher Luke Magliaro made it an even steeper challenge in his debut, throwing three scoreless innings. 

Magliaro pounded the strike zone with high velocity and used a mixture of off-speed pitches to keep the Madison hitters off balance. Madison's lone hit off of the right-hander came in the top of the third when Joey Abilo singled.

"You have to do the little things even when you're down," Anthony Abilo said. "One inning where they scored a few runs, outfielders missed a cutoff, the third basemen didn't cover to the bag, and even though the game gets out of hand, you still gotta do those things."

Carragher was pleased with his team's performance as West Essex, which hosts Springfield on Wednesday, improved to 2-0.

"It was a great performance," he said. "Before the game, we stressed doing the little things such as bunting, stealing and executing."