South Orange met West Essex American Legion

South Orange ran into arguably the best team in the Essex County American Legion League Thursday. The Cougars, hurt by sloppy play early in the game, dropped a 9-1 decision to West Essex in North Caldwell.

Coach Bob Drechsel's club fell to 5-13-1, but had some solid moments and a respectable performance from starting pitcher  Joel Brown-Christenson.

"He deserved better,'' Drechsel said.
Early errors were particularly hurtful in giving South Orange any chance to stay in the game. West Essex is 12-2-1.

"In the beginning of the game we made a few errors that really killed us and led to six of their runs,'' said the coach, whose team is playing without three players who are on other summer teams.

South Orange's best chance to cut into the deficit came in the fourth. Eli Weiss led off the inning with a single and moved to third on Joe Meola's double. Matt McGriff then hit a long double over right fielder Mike Jones' head. Weiss scored and Meola went to third. But West Essex' Jim Kenny got Ron Jean-Mary on a groundout, Max Nichols on a flyball to left and struck out Aaron Brown to end the inning. Meola tagged up, but didn't score.

"It's been our problem all year, we'll get guys on and we can't get the big hit when we need it,'' said Drechsel, in his sixth year as head coach. ""The problem is 11 seniors graduated and we're either very young with freshman who are going to be sophomores who are juniors who are seniors who haven't gotten varsity experience. That's really what the problem is. It's a work in progress. They're here every day, they get their work done, they get their batting done, I don't have to tell them what they have to do,'' he added. ""They believe they're going to win every game as I do. It's just that we've been a little short-handed. When you lose that many seniors it's a tough thing.''

Center fielder Mike Marotti opened the game for West Essex with a double and came all the way around to score on a throwing error. Ralph Velardi walked, stole second, moved up on Kenny's single and scored on Cosenzo's groundout. The Knights put the game away in the third. Marotti walked, Chris Carragher singled and the two moved up on a Velardi sacrifice. Cosenzo singled after a Kenny strikeout, driving in Marotti and Carragher scored when the right fielder fumbled the ball.

Mike Jones was hit by a pitch. Jones and Marrotti pulled a double steal, and then scored on an infield overthrow. That made it 6-0.

The Knights stole eight bases.

"If they give it we'll take it,'' Concenzo said.

Starting pitcher Jim Kenny pitched to the minimum nine batters in the first three innings, picking off Jean-Mary after he had singled. Kenny's big moment came in the fourth. "This team has a few kids who played in the Greater Newark Tournament the last two years; it's always going to be a dogfight for Columbia,'' said Kenny.