Category: Sports

MONUMENT — After watching what Longmont’s Danny Barker did against Palisade, Lewis-Palmer knew getting to the Class 4A state baseball tournament in Pueblo was going to be anything but easy.

Scoring a lot of runs seemed like the obvious way to advance and it turned out that each one mattered as the Rangers grabbed a 15-13 win over the Trojans to stay alive for another weekend.

In the game prior, Longmont beat Palisade 14-11 and Barker played a huge role in that game, going 3-for-4 with three home runs. The Trojans put together 19 hits and didn’t never struck out. Coming into the regional championship game, L-P coach Brett Lester knew his pitchers had their work cut out for them.

“First you have to execute your pitch,” Lester said. “Don’t let the situation become bigger than it is. Throw strikes early in the count, (keep the ball) down in the zone and just execute the best that you can.”

From a hitting standpoint, the Rangers (14-3 overall) were fine early. Two singles turned into two runs thanks a double from Tommy Fiocchi. He scored later in the inning on a balk from Longmont pitcher Herbie Mitchell.

Just like they had in the win over Palisade, the Trojans (12-6) eventually got the bats rolling. Down two runs heads into the top of the 4th, John Vandiver and Tristan Rangel reached on back-to-back hits. Vandiver scored on a Danny O’Brien single and Alec Northouse followed that up with a bases clearing double to put them in the lead.

A Fiocchi sacrifice fly in the bottom of the inning pulled the Rangers even again and then a huge 2-RBI single from Matt Rhoades gave the Rangers a burst of energy. He followed that up with another big at-bat in the 5th, that one a 3-RBI double that helped stretch out the lead.

“It completely changed the momentum of the game,” Rhoades said. “They were fired the entire time and both those hits just shut them down and rose our dugout up to the point where the game was a loss at that point for them.”

Perhaps, but Longmont had been the hard-to-beat team all day. Each time Palisade had a big inning, the Trojans found a way to climb back. Part that effort came off Barker’s bat.

After grounding out to second in the first inning, his next three at-bats all ending with a baseball heading toward the housing development just east of Lewis-Palmer High School.

As luck would have it, Barker had a chance to make a difference yet again. Longmont trailed 16-9 heading into the top of the 6th, but scored four runs to make it a two-run game. With a runner on first, Barker stepped to the plate with one out, representing the tying run.

Lester make a swift pitching change, bringing Caleb Pepper, a sophomore with a nasty curveball to get arguably the biggest of the season for the Ranger.

Pepper started off with a strike, then a ball. He got Barker swinging at strike two and then unleashed the breaking ball to get him fanning on strike three.

“I was just trying to attack him with strikes,” Pepper said. “If he hits it, he hits it. I just went at him. Some people might try to pitch around him but they end up leaving one (in the zone) and he’ll hit it over the fence. If you go at him, you make him make the play.”

Pepper allowed a base hit to Jacob Moats but struck out Vandiver to keep Lewis-Palmer’s season alive. The Rangers head to Pueblo on Friday for the first weekend of the 4A baseball tournament.