Gillette Pulls Away From Laramie Rangers at State

A six-run seventh by Gillette allowed the Roughriders to beat the Laramie Rangers at the Wyoming ‘AA’ American Legion Baseball State Tournament in Casper Thursday night.

Laramie (29-19) lost to Gillette for the second time in a six-day span. They drop into the loser’s side of the bracket and will face an elimination game Friday afternoon.

Manager Brandon Ruckman said they just couldn’t get their bats going.

“We got some hits, but they didn’t come back-to-back. We were missing the timely hits. You saw Gillette kind of do that. Move some runners and had a couple of timely hits that scored some runs, and that’s what we were missing.”

After a scoreless first three innings, the Rangers took a 1-0 lead on an RBI single from Michael Schutterle in the fourth. The Roughriders answered with two runs in each of the next two frames. A balk by Laramie allowed another run in the sixth for a 5-1 advantage.

The Rangers got a run back in the seventh when Logan Pickard produced an RBI sacrifice fly.

That’s when the flood gates opened, and Gillette scored seven times with two outs. Five hits, three walks, two stolen bases, an error and a wild pitch later, it was 11-2. The Riders finished the game with an RBI-single in the eighth.

Laramie had 10 hits, including three from Will Yates. Reid Baty started and was the losing pitcher.

Gillette had 13 hits and was led by Hayden Sylte with two hits and two RBI’s. Kolter Langdon worked into the seventh for the win on the mound. He allowed only two runs on nine hits with three strikeouts.

Ruckman also knew that free bases hurt, as the Riders took advantage of six walks, three hit batters, three wild pitches, a balk and some passed balls. That’s what Laramie did against Casper in their victory on Wednesday.

“It takes you out of the force outs, and then a base hit scores a runner from second base, and that’s exactly what they did.”

The Rangers will play at 4 p.m. Friday against Sheridan.

Ruckman knows it won’t be an easy game, but is confident in his team.

“I feel like we still have it within us to go deep in this tournament. We’re going to have to have not only the pitchers reduce their walks and wild pitches, passed balls, those things, but we’re also going to have to get the sticks going a little better.”

The winner survives to Saturday, while the loser’s season comes to an end. KOWB will carry the game starting at 3:45 p.m.