The varsity baseball team defeated Fowler 8-1 in a Division 5 Sierra League semi-final showdown on May 16. After gaining a 4-run lead in the 2nd inning, the baseball team continued to hold Fowler throughout the rest of the 7-inning game.

In the bottom of the 2nd inning, Casey Belmont, ’02, hit a controversial homerun, which was later judged to be a double by the officials. His hit however, not only scored a run, but also sparked what many team members think was the downfall of Fowler’s pitching game.

“I think the highlight of the game was when Casey hit a homerun off Jamie Cederquist,” (’02) Seth Fisher, ’04, said. “After that, we just into his head, and that hit really got us going. It didn’t matter too much that the umpires only called it a double because we were confident that we would win anyways.”

Belmont’s hit also coincided with coach Jon Hall’s game strategy.

“Our game plan was to attack Cederquist,” Hall said. “We wanted to knock him out of the game early and prove that our league championship and our wins over Fowler were not flukes.”

The entire team had a strong hitting game, with 12 hits overall. Belmont went 2-2 overall and scored two runs. Fisher went 2-4, and had a team-leading three RBIs. Both Sam Fisher, ’03, and Tim Swift, ’02, went 2-3.

“Our bats were alive this game,” Sam Fisher said. “All of our 1-9 batters were aggressive, and that enabled us to give Jon Steele, ’03, breathing space to throw his game.”

Steele pitched for all seven innings, allowing only four singles, and striking out five while earning his third win over Fowler.

“Playing any team for the fourth time and winning three out of four is a hard task to complete,” Steele said. “We knew that we needed to play our game and focus on playing as a team, not individually.”

In order to prepare for the upcoming game against Immanuel, Hall has new factors he plans to implement into team practices.

“We will continue to work on our fundamentals,” Hall said. “I also plan to speed up the pitching machine so we can get ready for Immanuel’s ace pitcher.”

The baseball team next plays in Reedley against Immanuel on May 21 for the title of Valley Champions. Game time is 4:30 p.m. and tickets are $4 for adults and $3 for students.