Laramie All-Stars Eye The Big Prize
The quest for a Little League Baseball State Championship starts Wednesday for the Laramie 9-10-year-old All-Stars in Powell.
Laramie faces Big Horn in their opening game at 6 p.m. Wednesday of the four-team, double elimination bracket.
The 9-10’s are coming off a District Tournament title last Friday with a 10-4 victory over Gillette National.
Manager Matt Lehning said it was very pleasing that the whole squad was part of that championship.
“Whether it was up to bat or out like in the field or on the pitcher’s mound, each and every one of those kids contributed. I like the maturity of this team. There’s a lot of older kids on this team that the leadership skills on this team is great.”
Lehning also referenced how his team treated each game with its own importance.
The next step is trying to win a state title this week in Powell.
Lehning said there’s really no major adjustments, but a little tweak with some base-running errors they had last week at districts.
“Not going to change a lot. Still going to take the mentality of kind of taking what we do (as our focus). I don’t know a whole lot about Big Horn. I don’t know a whole lot about the other team, Riverton, and I think actually we’re just going to continue to take that approach to try to focus on us and what our strengths are.”
Lehning felt pitching was going to be a very big asset for his team and that proved to be the case last week. He’s hoping for more of the same this weekend.
“Having the two individuals, Carson Moniz and James Vasek, getting what’d they go through close to five and a-third (innings) each I think was big for us. I still think, of course, the pitching’s gonna be important. There’s a lot of guys that didn’t even get a chance to pitch (last week at the District Tournament), that I believe have a chance to pitch at state.”
Lehning said they gave the team a couple of days off to enjoy the district title, but now it’s time to focus and realize the Big Horn game, their next game, is the most important.
The winner of Laramie-Big Horn advances to play the winner of Wednesday’s other first-round game between Riverton and Gillette National on Thursday at 4 p.m. The losers will play each other in an elimination game Thursday at 1 p.m.
The Wyoming 9-10 Little League Baseball State Championship game is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday. If a second title game becomes necessary, that would follow at 1 p.m.