CAMDEN —Preble Shawnee’s baseball team closed out the regular season winning six of its last seven games after winning both games it played last week, beating Dixie, 3-0 and Tri-Village 7-6.
The Arrows hosted Tri-Village on Tuesday, May 3, also Senior Night for the Arrows’ nine seniors.
Shawnee honored Cody Chesnut, Clayton Morgan, Payton Roberts, Jaret Dearth, Joby Williams, Wyatt Downard, Thomas Buell, Dylan Weireter and Trey Smith.
The Arrows scored a run in the first inning, but Tri-Village answered with three runs in the top of the second.
Shawnee responded with four runs in the bottom of the second to take a 5-3 lead.
Neither offense scored until the Arrows added two more runs in the bottom of the sixth with an RBI base hit from Jaret Dearth and a sacrifice bunt by Chase Thompson to plate a run.
With the score 7-3 in the top of the seventh, the Patriots’ first two batters reached on walks and after a double and another hit, trimmed the Shawnee lead to 7-6.
“I knew Cody was running out of gas but he wanted to finish the game on his senior night,” Shawnee coach Joe Leach said. “All our seniors started the game with the exception of Trey Smith, who was still out due to a shoulder injury. I wanted to let our seniors play the entire game together, win or lose. This was the only time all year I have had all the seniors on the field at on the same time.”
The offense was led by Jaret Dearth who walked and went 2-for-2.
Cody Chesnut, Clayton Morgan and Payton Roberts each had a hit. Sophomore Chase Thompson was the only non-senior player to play in the game. He scored two runs and had two RBIs with walks and a sacrifice bunt, which proved to be the game-winning run.
On Wednesday, Shawnee hosted Dixie for final game of the regular season. Eryk Smith started for the Arrows, going six innings of one-hit, shutout baseball as Shawnee beat the Greyhounds 3-0.
Dwight Wilt came in in the seventh inning and shut down Dixie for his third save of the year.
“Eryk did an outstanding job, but with his pitch count up, I wanted to make sure he got the win so I put in Dwight, our closer, who did a great job,” Leach said.
The Arrows’ offense only had five hits on the night, but that was enough to give Shawnee the win.
Luke Lovely, Eli Moreland, Clayton, Morgan, Dylan Weireter and Joby Williams each had singles in the game.
Preble Shawnee was scheduled to travel to Northwestern Springfield on Monday, May 9, for the first round of the Division III sectional tournament.
