By Tom Price jr.
With four games remaining in East Sequoia League play the Exeter Monarchs baseball team has already clinched at least a piece of the league title.
A 6-0 win over Woodlake on April 27 and a 11-6 win at home over Dinuba on April 30, put the Monarchs four games ahead of both Dinuba and Lindsay with four games remaining.
Vs. Dinuba
The Exeter Monarchs survived a furious comeback attempt by the Emperors, but having an 11-1 cushion disappear in the final inning left a sour taste in the mouth of coach Steve Garver.
"We gave them five unearned runs in the seventh inning when we should have just shut the door," Garver said. "This is a good group of boys and some nights they don't have that killer instinct and other nights they are like their coach and think too much. Other than that we are playing good baseball and we are just in a fine tuning process."
The Exeter bats were tuned in for the second straight game with 14 hits, four of which came off the bat of Casey Wightman who was 4-for-4 with four RBI, including two doubles and a triple. Carlos Gastelum was also perfect at the plate going 2-for-2 with four runs scored and an RBI.
Barry Lowry came off the bench fouled off six consecutive pitches before launching a two RBI double off the wall and Paul Gonzalez had two hits and two runs scored.
Vs. Woodlake
Mike Pendleton improved his record to 7-3 in a complete game 6-0 shutout over Woodlake. Pendleton struck out seven in the game and was aided by again reaching double-digits in hits.
Exeter jumped on the board early when Paul Gonzalez reached on a single and scored a wild pitch. They scored again in the third inning when Gastelum drove home Paul Gonzalez who led the inning off with a double. In the fifth inning Gastelum scored on a single by Beau Whitlock, in the sixth Eddie Chavez scored on a Gastelum single and Morgan Munger and Beau Whitlock scored the final two runs in the final inning.
Gastelum led all hitters, going 3-for-4 with two RBI and a double and Whitlock and Munger each added two hits.
"I think we are going to be alright," Garver said. "All we have to do is go out there and play baseball."
