Lobos crush Rangers

Richard Anderson photo
Laramie Rangers first baseman Mike Garner looks to make a play defensively behind a Wheatland baserunner Thursday night in the first game of the Dooley Oil Classic at Cowboy Field. The hard-hitting Lobos ran past the Rangers 21-11 in five innings.

Wheatland pounds out 21 hits in big win

By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org

Don’t be fooled by its size. Wheatland may be a Class A team in the state of Wyoming, but the Lobos are rating an A+ when it comes to hitting the baseball against high-level programs.

Thursday night was a prime example, as the Lobos pounded out 21 hits in thumping the AA Laramie Rangers, 21-11 in the first game of the Dooley Oil Classic at Cowboy Field.

That’s 21 hits in just five innings.

Veteran Wheatland manager Mick Cochran said the Lobos came to this four-day tournament a little short-handed pitching-wise, so he said they had to step it up at the plate.

“In order to beat Laramie or compete in this tournament, we’re going to have to score a lot of runs,” Cochran said. “We focused on hitting a lot of singles and putting the ball in play; challenging them and making them make plays, just driving the ball in the gap. We got the job done once we got runners on base.”

Wheatland seemed to thrive against Laramie pitching with two outs, consistently putting pressure on the Rangers with big hits.

“We scored a ton of one runs today with two outs,“ Cochran said. “That’s just a credit to our kids’ focus and really understanding the pitcher and understanding what their approach needs to be. They got the job done.”

It was Wheatland’s third win in four games against the Rangers this season, including a tough 6-5 victory last Sunday in the final day of the Rapid City, S.D., tournament. In that tourney, the Lobos were 4-1.

Laramie manager Sean McKinney was pleased with how his team played last week in Rapid City, but was not real happy with Thursday’s performance. At the same time, he said you have to tip your hat to the Lobos.

“Wheatland is a very good ball club and Mick Cochran has done a great job over there,” McKinney said. “They hit the crap out of the ball and it was no different tonight. We knew it was going to be tough. It was back and forth. But it’s like I told the guys, it’s one of those things that when you look up at the scoreboard and it is 18-10 and we both have 16 hits. But we’re walking guys and they kept coming up with the big hits with runners in scoring position. Their pitchers threw strikes and we didn’t get the big hits when we needed them like they were.”

Laramie led 4-3 after two innings before the Lobos scored eight big runs -- with five coming after a two-out error. Yet, the Rangers kept plugging away and trailed only by an 11-9 score after five runs in the bottom of the frame.

That, however, was as close as they would get as the Lobos never let up offensively, scoring four more times in the fourth and six runs in the fifth. Laramie had no answers.

“We scored 11 runs and that is great; but we gave up 21 runs,” McKinney said. “You can’t win a lot of ballgames like that. I kind of feel like we’re making the game hard on ourselves. The game is already hard enough, but there is so much going on that you can’t make it harder on yourself by getting picked off or making easy ground-ball errors, not taking a good route to the flyball and not hitting the cutoff. That makes the game harder on yourself. We’re not a good enough team to do that to ourselves. We need to stay strong and make the plays that we need to make and continue on. We didn’t do that tonight.”

Blake Vaughn paced the Lobos with four hits, followed by Stephen Taylor, Jon Daly and Malcom Ervin with three hits each.

Last year’s A champions, now 25-8, look to be stronger this season.

“We’re experienced and deep,” Cochran said. “We are missing two guys who are at the National FBLA today, but our team as a whole is real focused and real together. We have one goal and that is to win the State A tournament again. We had visions of maybe moving up at some point -- I’ve had this group together for three years. But they are solid and they play with a lot of confidence. I can’t say enough about the effort that they put out. We challenge ourselves with a tough schedule, playing the bigger teams week in and week out. We seem to compete, so it’s hats off to them.”

Laramie, 7-17, finished with 17 hits, led by second baseman Rylan Harding with four hits and right fielder Sean Gardea with three hits. Catcher Jon Sorenson, who had a two-run home run, led four Rangers with two hits.

Starting pitcher Jordan Rhodine was hit hard for Laramie, giving up 13 hits and 15 runs (eight earned) in 3 2/3 innings. Harding and Coley Wilson both pitched 2/3 of an inning, giving up three runs each.

Laramie will look to bounce back Friday night at 7 p.m. against the Colorado Bandits.

“It is going to be a beautiful day tomorrow and all of the teams are going to be here,” McKinney said. “It’s going to be a fun atmosphere. You just have to move on. You can’t sit here and think, ‘Gosh, what the heck happened? How can I do that?’ They beat us. We helped them, but they deserved that game.”

Dooley Oil Classic
Thursday’s Game
Wheatland 21, Laramie 11 (five innings)
Friday’s Games
9 a.m. -- Cheyenne Mountain (Colorado Springs) vs. Sand Creek (Colorado Springs)
11:30 a.m. -- Cheyenne Mountain vs. State Farm
2 p.m. -- Dothan, Ala. vs. Wheatland
4:30 p.m. -- Colorado Bandits (Denver) vs. Wheatland
7 p.m. -- Colorado Bandits vs. Laramie.
Saturday’s Games
9 a.m. -- State Farm vs. Cheyenne Post 6
11:30 a.m. -- State Farm vs. Sand Creek
2 p.m. -- Cheyenne Mountain vs. Cheyenne Post 6
4:30 p.m. -- Dothan vs. Colorado bandits
7 p.m. -- Laramie vs. Dothan

Sunday's Games

9 a.m. -- Cheyenne Post 6 vs. Sand Creek
11:30 a.m. -- Match play: Fourth-place finishers in each pool
2 p.m. -- Match play: Third-place finishers in each pool
4:30 p.m. -- Match play: Second-place finishers in each pool
7 p.m. -- Match play: First-place finishers in each pool