West Deptford Seniors Earn Spot in Eastern Regional

Local fans who attend the Senior League Baseball Eastern Regional over the next week will have plenty to cheer about.

That’s because the home team will be a big part of the action.

West Deptford got a big pitching performance from Ty Castellano and took advantage of some sloppy Paulsboro defense to run away with a 12-2 win in the decisive game of the District 15 championship series for back-to-back district titles.

Castellano needed just 87 pitches to hurl a complete game, striking out 13, and the West Deptford offense took care of the rest to secure a place in the regional.

West Deptford will open play Saturday at 5 p.m.

“Obviously, it’s a great opportunity in front of us,” West Deptford manager Ed Essig said. “The kids had their backs against the wall a couple times in the last week and they got it together and played well as a team. The bonus from that is that we get to move on.”

By virtue of West Deptford hosting the tournament—which begins Friday—the winner of District 15 gets an automatic place in the tournament without having to compete in a section tournament. That doesn’t mean West Deptford was on easy street, as the local all-stars lost to Paulsboro in the teams' first two meetings, and needed to be them in consecutive games to earn a place in the Eastern Regional.

“We knew if we had timely hits and didn’t make errors, we could win both games, and that’s what we did,” said Castellano.

The West Deptford offense struggled to find the big hit in the early stages of the game, leaving six runners in scoring position over the first three innings. However, Paulsboro offered a helping hand in the fourth, surrendering three runs on four walks, two errors and zero hits.

The lead was 3-1 in the sixth when West Deptford got some breathing room. West Deptford got hits from Dave Strout and Conor Goggin and a fielder’s choice RBI from Sonny Conto, and were able to turn that into four runs thanks to two more errors from Paulsboro.

“Paulsboro is a much better team than they showed tonight, and we were fortunate enough to get some breaks,” Essig said. “The kids were heads up and the base coaches were heads up, and we were able to take advantage.”

Paulsboro was able to get one run back in the bottom of the sixth, but West Deptford erased any doubt of the outcome with a five-run seventh. Castellano and Ed Essig each had RBI hits to help break the game open.

“It was kind of hard coming off the first game loss, but the second game we pulled through and just finished it off tonight,” said the younger Essig, who was 3-for-3 with two walks and two RBIs.

Castellano took care of the rest, striking out Tyler Adams to end the game and start the celebration.

“Ty’s amazing,” the West Deptford manager said. “I think the mental aspect is as good as the physical aspect with him. He’s a seasoned player for such a young age and he has a good mind for the game. I think that keeps him out of trouble as much as anything else.”

Though West Deptford will have its hands full against some of the top teams from Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, among others, the players do not feel like they will be in over their heads.

Instead, they feel like they belong.

“We just have to play to our full potential,” the younger Essig said. “If we play to our full potential we should have no problem.”

“It helps that a couple of us have already been there,” said Castellano, who was on last year’s team that reached this point. “I think we can beat anybody because we have the pitching.”

West Deptford opens up against Orange, CT, at 5 p.m. Saturday.