Laramie Rangers Debut At Cowboy Field

After more than a month of action on the road, the Laramie Rangers finally play their home opener Monday night at Cowboy Field.

Laramie will take on the Guernsey Grizzlies in a conference doubleheader starting at 6:30 p.m. It's the first of five 'A' Southeast Conference twin bills on the 2014 schedule.

Rangers manager Rich Wilson said they are looking forward to playing at Cowboy Field,

"To get home and be able to play here where we've been practicing all along, it's priceless."

Laramie is 4-9 on the season with all 13 of those games played away from the Gem City. They played seven games in Cheyenne, four in Casper and two in Douglas last Saturday.

The Rangers are winless against 'AA' competition, but undefeated against 'A' level teams. They also went 0-5 against some select squads from Colorado at the Cheyenne Memorial Day weekend tournament.

June will be a busy time for the Rangers, who will play 14 games at Cowboy Field this month and that doesn't count road dates.

Wilson added, "We're going to get tired in June, and the kids know that. Then we're going to look at things in July. Of course, that's about the time you need to really be peaking."

In their most recent action, Laramie's Nate Hill tossed a complete game, one-hit shutout to win first game 7-0 at Douglas last Saturday. Hill threw a total of 76 pitches and also had seven strikeouts.

The Rangers had only eights, but also took advantage of five walks and six errors by the Cats. Drew Burman led the Laramie offense with three hits and an RBI. Hill added two hits and three RBI. That included a two-run double in the third inning by Hill.

Game two was an offensive slugfest won by the Rangers 27-10. Laramie trailed 5-2, but rallied with nine runs in the second for an 11-7 edge. They exploded with 13 runs in the fourth inning.

Taylor Dodd led the offense with three hits and five RBI, which included a three-run home run in the second inning. Kacey Bernaski also added four hits and three RBI. The Rangers also drew ten walks, had four batters get hit by a pitch and capitalized on four Douglas errors.

The home opener will be broadcast on KOWB (AM 1290) and on-line here. David Settle will call the action of game one only starting at 6:15 p.m.