As the weather continues to heat up, so do the Monarch’s bats. Monarchs Gold were at it again on Saturday as they knocked out the Allegheny Athletics by a final score of 5-1.

The game was tight early as both teams struggled to get runners into scoring position. Scoreless through three innings, the Monarchs began to break through in the bottom of the fourth. It started with Drew Kuns’ towering solo home run to straight away center field. Jake Cappelletty followed with a flair single to right, and Casey Winckowski belted the second home run of the inning on a dead laser to left, bringing home Cappelletty and running the score to 3-0. The Monarchs almost tacked on more with runners on second and third, but were unable to bring them across, keeping the Athletics within striking distance.

The Athletics did just that in the top of the sixth by plating one and closing the lead to 3-1.
The Monarchs however quickly changed that in the bottom of the inning. Cappelletty led off the inning with a broken-bat single, followed by a hit-by-pitch for Howard, and single by Winckowski. With the bases loaded, one out, and the Athletics infield playing on the grass for the play at home, Brian Bilius hammered a hard grounder towards short resulting in a RBI fielder’s choice, as Cappelletty scored and Brett Howard was put out at third. Eric Yunker continued the inning with a two out RBI single to bring home Winckowski. Gold closed out with a scoreless seventh resulting in a final score victory of 5-1.

The Monarchs also sported their new red uniforms for the first time in Tri-State league play.

Gold’s next game will be against Monarchs Blue at 5/3 field on Wednesday at 6:30.

A little ‘small ball’ made a big difference in Sunday’s game for the Monarchs Gold against Northern Ohio. Ryan Mouch had the bases loaded for him with one out in the bottom of the 6th with the score deadlocked at three a piece. After battling the pitcher to a full count, Mouch and the base-runners executed a perfect squeeze play, bunting the ball down the first base line, and enabling the runner at third to score while Mouch beat out the throw to first. This proved to be all the breathing room needed for the pitching staff to shut the door on a 4-3 victory.

All the scoring happened in the first as Jake Cappelletty and Brian Bilius had RBI singles, and Drew Kuns scored from third when the catcher made an errant pick-off throw to second that sailed into the outfield. The pitching for the Monarchs started off a bit rocky for the first two innings giving up two runs in the first, and another in the second. The staff bounced back though and combined to end the game with five shutout innings. Defensive play of the game goes to Casey Winckowski in the top of the third when he gunned down the Northern Ohio  base-runner at home plate preserving a 3-3 tie and recording the Outfield Assist.