A Monarch Legacy: Exeter’s Aidan Robertson has sights set on Central Section title

EXETER − Exeter High School senior Aidan Robertson has one main goal for the baseball season — to win a Central Section championship. And if the Monarchs are going to make a run at the title, the lefty is going to play a huge role in doing so.

“I think this is the best team I’ve been a part of out of all four years I’ve been at Exeter,” Robertson said. “This team is hitting really well and we have key pieces. We have a deep pitching room and everyone is working together to give ourselves the best chance against some of these teams.”

Robertson is off to an outstanding start, helping lead the Monarchs to a 14-5 record and a championship at the annual Ron Robinson Baseball Classic in Woodlake. In the championship game, Robertson pitched a complete-game two-hitter as the Monarchs defeated South 2-0.

For the season, Robertson is 6-1 with a 1.66 earned run average with 48 strikeouts in 38 ⅔ innings of work.

“I feel really good about it,” Robertson said about the start of his senior season. “I had a good sophomore year and my junior year I didn’t have as good a year, but I still competed, and my senior season, I’m off to a really good start. Right now, pitching is what I’ve been focusing on and I’ve been doing really well with that.”

Exeter coach Kevin Kirkman is pleased with Robertson’s progress as the team’s ace.

“He works hard,” Kirkman said. “He does stuff on the weekends and other things to make himself better to compete. He has goals. He wants to play beyond high school and he works hard for that.”

Like father, like son

Robertson has some lofty expectations to live up to and that is something he is good with.

His father, Jeriome Robertson, was a major league pitcher for the Houston Astros. Jeriome pitched in 51 big league games. He also played professionally in Taiwan and Mexico.

Jeriome’s best season as a professional was in 2003 when he went 15-9 as a rookie for the Astros, finishing in seventh place in Rookie of the Year voting.

“Anytime I see my dad’s old friends or people he went to school with, they come up to me and tell me how much I look like him and how I play like him,” Aidan said.

Memories are all Aidan has of his dad. Jeriome passed away in 2010 in a motorcycle accident. Aidan said he was four years old at the time.

“Growing up, when he was around, I remember being in the backyard all the time hitting a baseball or playing catch,” Aidan said. “Anytime he was around, it was pretty much all baseball. Anything I did with my dad was related to baseball.”

Former longtime Exeter baseball coach Steve Garver coached Jeriome and Aidan at one point in their careers. Garver was Jeriome’s high school baseball coach. Together they won a Central Section championship in 1995. Jeriome was the Times-Delta’s co-player of the year that year and was then drafted by the Houston Astros in the 24th round of the 1995 amateur draft.

More than 20 years later, Garver had retired from teaching and coaching at the high school, but still had the itch to coach and he coached Aidan at Wilson Middle School in Exeter, where they won a league championship together.

Garver is not surprised to see Aidan’s success.

“He’s his own man in his own way,” Garver said. “As much as he is Jeriome and Whitney’s son, he is his own man, especially seeing where he has come in his development.”

One common characteristic Aidan and Jeriome share is being left-handed pitchers and when Aidan steps onto the mound, he has the same high leg kick his dad had.

“It’s weird because I don’t think I ever learned the high leg kick from him,” Aidan said. “I think I just started pitching and that felt normal, which is weird because it happens to be my dad’s delivery. It felt normal to me to pitch that way and it just so happened to be like my dad.”

'Be the best player I can be'

A passion for baseball is something that will probably never go away for Aidan. It is definitely a family pastime. Aidan’s younger brother Owen is on the varsity team as a sophomore and Aidan said he loves having him around.

“I think it's great because he gets to learn and develop under myself and some of the older players I’ve grown up with,” Aidan said about Owen. “I’m just hoping he learns to play the game the way I know he can and learn to care for the game as much as I do.”

Kirkman is impressed with Owen’s size and strength and believes he will be a big part of the team’s success this season and into the future.

“Owen showed up this year big and strong,” Kirkman said. “He’ll find his place. He started a little slow but he’s only a sophomore. He had a couple hits the other day. I have total confidence in Owen.”

Aidan says he and his brother Owen owe a lot of their baseball success to their stepdad Apolinar Marroquin.

“Paul, my step-dad, came along early in my life,” Aidan said. “And he carried on that baseball tradition. He’s been working with me ever since I was little. I thank him a lot for everything because I don’t know if I’d be at the level I am without him.”

Aidan said Apolinar (Paul) played baseball at Orosi High School and in college.

Aidan has learned the game from a lot of knowledgeable people. Kirkman played collegiately at College of the Sequoias and Long Beach State and can see Aidan playing at the next level.

Aidan said he hopes to play at the junior college level and work his way into a Division I baseball player. He is not sure where he is going to play next year but Bakersfield College and COS are probably his two leaders, respectively.

“I like the track record they have of moving their players to the next level and I really like the connection I have with their coach,” Aidan said about Bakersfield College. “But I also like COS. I’ve gotten close with them and like everything their coaches have to say.”

But first things first, Aidan wants to accomplish something his dad did — win a Central Section championship for the Exeter Monarchs.

“Obviously, some of his records are harder to aim for, but Valley is the main goal,” Aidan said. “I want to be on there with all other teams that have won Valley for Exeter. Just trying to accomplish the things he accomplished is pushing me to be the best player I can be.”

This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: Exeter’s Aidan Robertson has sights set on Central Section title