Rangers A open Klep Klassic with win

Richard Anderson photos
At top, Laramie second baseman Tyler Mitchell makes an acrobatic play for a forceout of a Rawlins baserunner Friday night at Cowboy Field. At bottom, pitcher Lance McCartney shows the form that enabled him and the Rangers A team to stop Rawlins 10-0 in the first day of the Kleppinger Klassic.

McCartney tosses two-hit gem

By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org

Lance McCartney isn’t going to pretend that he fooled the Rawlins hitters by mixing up his pitch selection.

He just rocked and fired fastball after fastball. If he got hit, fine. He didn’t and that was even better for the Laramie Rangers A team.

McCartney tossed a two-hit shutout of Rawlins Friday night to lift the Rangers to a 10-0 win to kick off the Kleppinger Klassic at Cowboy Field.

“That’s probably the best game I have ever pitched,” McCartney said. “I felt pretty good.”

McCartney didn’t walk a batter and struck out four, including the final hitter to end the game. He threw just 44 pitches, including 30 strikes. That’s basically 44 of the same pitches.

“Just one pitch, my fastball,” he said with a grin.

While the results were better than anticipated, his strategy was the same: Stick with what works.

“I very rarely throw a curve ball,” he said. “I still haven’t mastered that yet.”

He didn’t have to against the Generals.

That was fine with Laramie manager Jeremy Francom, as he said pitchers can often outsmart themselves by having too big of a pitching repertoire.

“I think a lot of times players try to do too much with their pitching; they try to throw too many different pitches and that’s what gets them in trouble,” Francom said. “Lance, tonight, was spotting his fastball very well and tonight was a testament to it. If you spot your pitches, you are going to be successful. He spotted his pitches great and that’s what we needed him to do.

After a scoreless first inning, the Rangers took advantage of several miscues by the Generals and used timely hitting for a four-run second inning. Laramie kept up the pressure and Rawlins kept up the mistakes (11 errors in the game). Laramie added one run in the third and five more in the fourth for the easy win.

“Our main goal in this game was to be aggressive at the plate and jump on them early,” Francom said. “I think it took a little bit of an adjustment to the speed of the pitcher, but after that first inning, we were able to put up four in the second and kind of continue on from there.”

Catcher Kyle Alexander led the Rangers with two hits and two RBI. Six other Laramie batters hit safely, with third baseman Nick Armijo adding a triple and two RBI, center fielder Brody Hilgenkamp and second baseman Tyler Mitchell pounding one double each. Left fielder Barry Thomas, shortstop Nolan Carter and McCartney all had one single in the game, with McCartney knocking in a run to help his own cause.

“We’ve played them before and with this a tournament, we were ready to play,” McCartney said. “We’ve been ready and we’re ready for (Saturday).”

Laramie, 10-18, returns to the diamond Saturday to face Cheyenne A at 9 a.m. and the Green River AA squad at 7 p.m.

“Tonight was great to gain this momentum; we needed this win,” Francom said. “We just need to keep the same enthusiasm that we had and the same mindset that we had today and continue that play into Saturday.”

In the other tournament games on Friday, defending A state champion Wheatland gained two wins, 9-0 over Cheyenne and 8-4 over Torrington AA. Green River also beat Torrington 7-5.

In Saturday’s other games, Cheyenne takes on Torrington at 11:30 a.m., Rawlins and Wheatland face off at 2 p.m. and Rawlins plays Green River at 4:30 p.m.