Laramie Rangers Win Tournament in Alliance, Nebraska

The Laramie Rangers are red hot after taking four games at the Clair Conley Tournament in Alliance, NE last weekend.

Laramie has won nine straight to get to an 18-11 record on the season.

Rangers’ manager Brandon Ruckman admitted they’re on a good roll.

“I think the team’s definitely shown a lot of signs of improvement, but I definitely want to start winning (against) the bigger, bigger teams. We’re going to be facing a lot more of those here coming up… so it’s really going to test us. We’ll see how the back-half of the season goes, but I think we’re headed in a right direction.”

Laramie opened with an 18-0 victory over Morrill, NE Saturday. Ramon Gomez and Matt Smith combined on a no-hitter, as it took the Rangers only three innings for the victory. Gomez and Smith threw a total of 34 pitches. Laramie scored 15 runs in the first inning. Michael Schutterle led the attack with two hits and four RBI’s.

The Rangers got another great pitching performance Saturday evening and beat the host, Alliance, 7-0. Albert Steiner needed only 89 pitches for the shutout victory. He gave up only five hits with one walk and six strikeouts. David Coulthard had a pair of two-run singles that led the offense.

Sunday featured another offensive explosion. Laramie produced their second 15-run inning of the tournament. They used that in a 27-5 win over Bridgeport, NE. The Rangers were tied 3-3, when they scored eight straight runs for an 11-3 lead. They closed out the game in the fifth with 15 runs. Reid Baty had two hits and drove in four runs. Logan Pickard started and was the winning pitcher.

In their final game, Laramie got out to an early 5-0 lead and held off a comeback by Chadron, NE for an 8-5 win. A four-run first inning got the Rangers off to a good start. Coulthard had a two-run single, plus Will Yates and Matt Smith added RBI hits. Insurance runs in the sixth and seventh on a sacrifice fly and a passed ball preserved the victory. Blake Moore got the win on the mound, while Baty earned the save. Laramie took advantage of seven errors by Chadron.

Ruckman said of the weekend, “Great pitching. Great Defense. It definitely showed. Just the way they came out and approached the game, it was good to see, like high-energy when they showed up to the field.”

The Rangers begin a home-stand with a doubleheader Tuesday against the Wheatland Lobos. That will start at 5 p.m. from Cowboy Field. This weekend, Thursday through Sunday, will be the wood-bat Dooley Oil Classic featuring six other teams from around the region.