Springfield Sophomore Legion Baseball Makes History With Undefeated Season

In the 86-year history of American Legion baseball in NJ, no Union County sophomore team had ever finished with a perfect record.

Until now.

On Monday night at Veterans field in Rahway, Springfield beat Summit 6-2 in the Finals of the Union-Middlesex Bi-County Tournament. The boys from Jonathan Dayton High School finished with a perfect 18-0 record to cap off a historic summer season.

Tommy Walsh, Chase Kimmel and Mike Depalma all pitched complete games and first baseman Mike Iuliano was named tournament MVP batting .666 with a perfect fielding percentage making jaw dropping plays at first base. Springfield beat the one seed from Middlesex county South Plainfield on Saturday 10-1. On Sunday they blanked Monroe 6-0 and finished off the championship Monday night against Summit.

It was a memorable summer for the 15u Springfield team, coming off the Union County Championship last Monday with a 3-1 victory over an excellent Scotch Plains team to win the Union County Championship at Veterans field in Rahway. When the summer season was being planned, Dayton head coach Mike Abbate took on the role of managing this team rather then staying with the varsity to see what he had in the farm system.

In Abbate’s first two years he has taken Dayton to a conference championship and a deep run in the state tournament. He has made Dayton a name to be reckoned with in Union County. Coach Abbate preaches pitching, defense and base running before hitting. These boys quickly got the message outscoring their first 6 opponents 51-9.

The pitching came from Tommy Walsh, Chase Kimmel, Michael DePalma, Andrew Lashuk , Mike Iuliano and Joe Esposito. Walsh led the team in wins pitching 5 complete games. The defense came from everyone on the field. Offensively, Matt Ranieri was a standout with the bat all season leading the team in RBI’s followed closely behind by Ben Steel but no one lacked for offense, the lineup produced 1 thru 12. Behind the plate Zach Samansky caught nearly every inning and threw out enough runners to halt most teams running games.

By season’s end the dawgs had outscored their opponents 149-30 in route to their 18-0 record. In all but 3 games they held opponents to 2 or fewer runs. In the Union County Tournament they started with a game against Union. Chase Kimmel got the start and was dominant. He and Andrew Lashuk combined on a 3 hit shutout. In the semi-finals the dawgs faced long time rival Summit. It was a back and forth game for three innings with the dawgs leading 6-5 in the fourth when their bats really heated up and exploded for 9 runs. The game ended with a mercy shortened 15-5 victory.

Tommy Walsh got the win. In the Championship game they faced off against Scotch Plains who’s only loss of the season came against Springfield 3-1 on June 22nd. Eventual Tournament MVP Chase Kimmel was called upon to start the game and responded by pitching a complete game in route to another 3-1 victory. The dawgs jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning with an RBI triple by Matt Ranieri followed by an RBI double by Ben Steel. It was all the runs they would need as the defense was stellar and Kimmel threw a gem. Most of these boys have played travel baseball together since they were 8 years old and have gradually improved every year thru hard work and dedication to the game. Over the past two years these boys have compiled a 47-6 record. Judging from this year the future of Dayton baseball looks bright.