The Monarchs Gold traveled to Youngstown Saturday and played two competitive games with the Metros. The Gold won the first game 6 to 4 with 6 hits and won the second game in nine innings 11 to 8 with 12 hits.

Phil Brua, in his second appearance for the Gold, recorded his first win in the first game. Brua threw 6 solid innings allowing only 4 runs with 5 strikeouts and only walked 1 batter. Josh Stidham closed out the game in the seventh inning with only 7 pitches.

The Gold started their runs in the second inning with a leadoff walk by Howard then Hornyak went to first on an error. After Peffley walked Mouch drove in Howard with a single. Bilius then hit a shot to center field scoring both Hornyak and Peffley.

Two more runs were scored in the third inning after Cappeletti led off with a walk and scored on a double by McFarland. McFarland then scored on a double by Howard.

The Gold started the second game with a 5 run deficit after two innings of play. Jared King led off the third with a one out single then stole second base. Corey Lehman then started a 5 batter hitting streak with a single scoring King. Ryan Mouch doubled scoring Lehman then Bilius hit a single to score Mouch. Jake Cappeletti continued the hitting streak with a double scoring Bilius and Winckowski finished the hits with a single.

Hits by Bret Howard and Colin Meinzer helped with 2 more runs in the fourth inning to make it a 7 to 5 game with Gold in the lead. The Metros scored in the fifth, but Gold’s Brian Bilius jacked a deep ball to left Center for a homerun to keep Gold up by 2 runs. The Metros scored 2 runs in the sixth to tie the game where it remained until ninth inning.

Eric Yunker led off the top of the ninth with a walk then stole second and third base and scored the go ahead run on a wild pitch. Lehman was hit by a pitch and Mouch walked. Bililus then drove in Lehman with a sacrifice fly and Winckowski hit a single to score Mouch for the 11th run. The Metros went three up and three down in the bottom of the ninth.

Matt Kaighin and Nate White split the pitching duties and both had strong performances. Kaighin pitched the first 4 1/3 innings and White finished the game for the win.