Powell juniors finish as runners-up

Posted 7/25/17

After losing to Green River on Thursday, the Powell Juniors turned the tables and beat Green River Saturday to force a decisive third game. The Powell squad rallied but fell 16-15 on Saturday afternoon in Green River.

Juniors co-captain Kobe …

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Powell juniors finish as runners-up

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The Powell Little League Juniors baseball team battled to second place at the state tournament last week, coming up just short of Green River after two wild comebacks against Big Horn County.

After losing to Green River on Thursday, the Powell Juniors turned the tables and beat Green River Saturday to force a decisive third game. The Powell squad rallied but fell 16-15 on Saturday afternoon in Green River.

Juniors co-captain Kobe Ostermiller said he thought the tournament “was a really good experience for the team — [not just] the baseball part of it, but the getting to know each other and just spending time with each other and having a good experience.”

The team stayed together, ate together and traveled together.

“Through rough times we learned that we would all be there for each other no matter what happened,” said Landon Sessions, another team captain.

“Our defense struggled at the beginning, but we came through when we needed it and got the outs when we needed it and every infielder was backing up our pitchers and encouraging him,” added Landon Lengfelder, the third co-captain.

“They’re just a great group of kids that really care about each other. Always there to help each other out, there’s not infighting, there’s no jealousy and they are all really good athletes and very very competitive but they also like to have fun,” said Junior Manager Matthew Lengfelder.

Monday, July 17: Powell 18, Big Horn County 10

The Powell Juniors started their state tournament with a big comeback. Playing in Powell, the Juniors saw Big Horn County build a 9-3 lead going into the bottom half of the sixth inning.

Manager Lengfelder said the team squandered some early chances and gave up a couple of preventable runs, but “the biggest thing with playing at the Little League level is pitch counts and, you know, we just had to be patient.”

In the sixth inning, Big Horn County’s starter hit his pitch limit and had to come out of the game.

“When they made that pitching change, our kids were patient; they worked the counts and tried to make the other kids have to make pitches,” manager Lengfelder said.

Powell rallied for 15 runs, with walks, errors, singles and some doubles keeping the runs coming.

“I think everybody was just patient and waiting for their opportunities to get on either through a walk or put the ball in play,” Lengfelder said. “That’s kind of been our philosophy. I just tell them: put the ball in play, use your speed, put the pressure on the defense — and I thought we did a pretty good job doing that.”

Big Horn managed just one run in the top of the seventh, giving Powell an 18-10 win.

Powell gave up only four walks and two early errors.

Manager Lengfelder praised his squad’s pitching, including Jaden Marchant.

“We never really pitched him [Jaden Marchant] against them and he’s a lefty and I think that worked in our favor,” Lengfelder said.

Mason Marchant went 2-for-3 with three walks and three runs.

Jaden Marchant and Colt Flores worked out of the nine spot in the lineup, with each going 2-for-3 with a walk.

“Getting production from the bottom part of your order is really important,” Lengfelder said.

Thursday: Green River 15, Powell 9

The win over Big Horn on Monday slated Powell to play Green River on its home field Thursday night.

Powell jumped on Green River early, putting up four runs the top half of the first inning before Green River answered with two.

“Our pitching was decent, but our defense kind of let us down with a couple of costly errors, easy plays that we needed to make to get out of an inning which we failed to execute on,” Lengfelder said. “And they kind of took advantage of picking up a couple runs here, a couple runs there.”

Green River tied the game in the second inning, then erupted for eight in the third to lead 12-4.

“I think that kind of changed momentum quite a bit,” said manager Lengfelder.

Green River later built the lead to 15-4 in the fourth and hung on for a 15-9 win.

Ashton Brewer started the game for Powell and “pitched pretty well the first two innings” before tiring in the third, said manager Lengfelder.

Canyon Gonzalez, who Lengfelder described as a steady pitcher all season, threw a scoreless sixth.

“We didn’t hit the ball as well as what we are capable of,” said manager Lengfelder, adding that the balls hit well were generally hit at people. Powell also drew only three walks while making untimely errors, he said.

Friday: Powell 14, Big Horn 13 (eight innings)

The loss to Green River placed Powell in a loser-out game against Big Horn County on Friday. The game proved to be similar to their game from Monday.

Going into the fifth inning, Big Horn County had built an 11-1 lead, putting Powell in danger of losing by the 10-run mercy run.

But Powell shut out Big Horn County in the top of the fifth and managed to push across one run in the bottom half to make the score 11-2 and keep playing.

“At that point, that is what I kind of kept telling them: scratch out a run, keep the game going, stretch it out as far as we can,” said manager Lengfelder.

Big Horn County again was on the verge of closing things out, scoring two more runs to make it 13-2 going into the bottom of the sixth.

But the Powell squad then busted loose for 10 runs, again capitalizing on some pitching changes due to pitch count limits.

“We just broke out, just hit the ball, couple walks,” said manager Lengfelder.

Powell shut out Big Horn County in the top of the seventh to trail just 13-12.

Down to their last three outs, Canyon Gonzales led off and hit a triple. Eventually, Gonzalez scored on a passed ball and forced an extra inning.

Powell again held Big Horn without a run in the top of the eighth. In the bottom of the extra inning, Landon Langfelder hit a lead-off triple, then Sam Bauer brought him home with a hit over second base.

Canyon Gonzalez started and “pitched very well” for three innings, said manager Lengfelder. Mason Marchant took over in the fourth.

Ashton Brewer went 3-for-4 at the plate.

“Bats woke up late in that game and I was feeling pretty good about that going into the championship game,” said manager Lengfelder.

Saturday, Game 1: Powell 22, Green River 13

With the win over the Big Horn, Powell again faced off against Green River, hoping to force a decisive third game with the team in the double elimination bracket.

“We came out and just pounded them,” said manager Lengfelder.

Powell scored 10 runs in the first two innings and led 16-11 going into the fifth.

“Our bats kind of slowed down in those middle innings,” said manager Lengfelder. “I was kind of hoping we could just keep putting it on them and try to 10 run them so we could try to shorten the game.”

Manager Lengfelder said a problem he ran into was that he’d used up two of the team’s better pitchers, Canyon Gonzalez and Mason Marchant, to get to the championship game while he was also trying to save pitching for the decisive second game.

The manager tabbed Toran Graham for three innings and he “pitched outstanding for a 13-year-old.” Landon Sessions followed Graham to the mound and “[I] knew he would battle and give us everything he had,” said manager Lengfelder.

In the sixth inning, Powell put up six more runs to make the final score 22-13.

Landon Lengfelder went 4-for-6 at the plate, Graham 3-for-5, Gonzales 2-for-4 with two doubles and Brewer 3-for-3.

Saturday, Game 2: Green River 16, Powell 15

About an hour and 15 minutes, later the two teams had to face off again for the state championship title.

Manager Lengfelder described it as hot with not much wind and both teams trying to stay in the shade.

“The heat kind of took a toll on both teams and you could just tell it was just going to be a battle,” Lengfelder said.

Powell scored seven runs in the second inning to take a 7-3 lead going into the third inning and led 8-5 after four.

Kolt Flores, 13, came in to pitch and gave up six runs in two innings of work.

“Considering the situation that he was put in, I thought that kid really stepped up,” manager Lengfelder said.

Added Kobe Ostermiller, one of three team captains, “we were kind of short-handed in pitchers coming into the last championship game.”

“I thought he [Flores] did a good job stepping up and keeping us in the game even though he hadn’t really had much experience,” Kobe Ostermiller said, to agreement from fellow captains Landon Lengfelder and Sessions.

“I just told all of the players who were eligible to pitch that you better be ready, because you might have to,” said manager Lengfelder. “They were all willing to do whatever it took for the team.”

Green River grabbed a 16-12 lead going into the seventh inning. Powell rallied with three runs, but couldn’t get a fourth, falling 16-15 and finishing as runners-up.

Manager Lengfelder praised the “tremendous effort that the kids put in — every one of them.”

“They worked hard,” he said. “In the end it was pitching and some defensive errors that kind of let us down.”

At the plate, Brewer went 3-for-5, Bauer and Gonzalez went 2-for-4.

Powell drew 10 walks while giving up 17.

“Kids played hard all the way through, they care about each other, you can just see it,” said manager Lengfelder who also went on that when kids made a mistake the team would pick each other up.

Powell put up 77 runs in five games of the state tournament while giving up 67.

Manager Lengfelder said the coaching staff has received comments from people in other towns about how respectful Powell’s players are.

“You just got to be proud of being a part of them and them allowing you to be part of this slice of their life,” said manager Lengfelder. “The Powell community should be very proud of this group of kids coming through, cause there’s a lot of really good leaders.”

Last year, the juniors baseball team won the state championship title. Kobe Ostermiller said a second place finish this season “shows that we are able to compete every year ‘cause we have the players and skills and the league in Powell that will be able to compete, I think.”

The three team captains thanked their coaches — especially Blaze Flores — for stepping in and their parents for taking time to travel to games and shuttling them to and from practices.

The Juniors are also coached by Cory Ostermiller.

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