Riverton’s traveling Under12 baseball team, the Trash Pandas, went 2-2 over the weekend in their home wooden bat tournament in a four-team field that included squads from Jackson, Cheyenne, and Gillette.
Riverton’s record is 9-9 on a season that began back in late April and continues with a couple of more tournaments this month.
The Trash Pandas opened play digging a huge hole in trailing the Jackson Giants 20-1 before a final 20-6 loss Saturday morning. They rebounded with a solid, come-from-behind effort under 97-degree temperatures later that evening with a 6-5 win over the Cheyenne Mustangs.
Sunday morning they played perhaps the best traveling team in the state in the Gillette Bulldogs and fell 17-3, sending them to the third/fourth game and a rematch with the Cheyenne squad.
They handled Cheyenne 12-5 in their final contest.
In their tournament opener, Jackson tallied four runs in each of the first two innings, then blew the game open with a 12-run onslaught in the top of the third. Riverton’s run in the bottom of the first came after Aaron Hutchison reached on a walk, then advanced to third where he scored when JJ Majdic made it to first on a dropped, called third strike.
That was the only Trash Panda offense entering the bottom of the third with the score 20-1. Riverton added five runs in the inning, but the game reached the time limit along with more than a 10-run lead by Jackson.
Majdic had a solid effort on the mound against Cheyenne, fanning eight Mustang batters in the five-inning contest.
Riverton trialed 1-0 with an unearned run by Cheyenne and an otherwise solid defensive effort with Miles Holiday-Rico catching a fly ball in right field and second baseman Douglas Mowery running down another fly ball to end the inning.
The Trash Pandas had only one hit in the game, a double by Colman, but they used five walks, and clever baserunning behind infield, fielder’s choice plays to tally three first-inning runs.
Cheyenne jumped ahead in the top of the second with four runs for a 5-3 lead, but the Trash Pandas again answered with three more in the bottom half to take a 6-5 advantage.
Anderson was hit by a pitch and scored on Colman’s double. Colman advanced to third and scored on a wild pitch to tie the game at 5-5.
Aiden Lebrun walked, then stole second, and advanced to third on a ground ball. He scored the go-ahead run on a Cambden Heil ground out to the third baseman, taking off as the third basemen threw to first and outrunning the throw home.
Gillette is a powerhouse team with size, power, and quickness and they displayed that prowess early against the Trash Pandas jumping to an 11-0 lead before Riverton was able to put together single runs in the second, third, and fourth innings.
In their tournament finale, Sunday afternoon the Trash Pandas spread eight hits over five innings to take an early lead 5-1 and then built on it with a pair of mid-game runs and a final five-run outburst in the bottom of the fifth to even their tournament mark against the Mustangs 12-5.
Cheyenne 1 0 3 0 1 – 5 7 1
Riverton 5 0 1 1 5 – 12 8 2
Trash Pandas – Coombs 0-2, Lebrun 1-3, Holiday-Rico 0-1, Colman 1-1, Majdic 2-3, Heil 2-2, Mowery 0-2, Hutchison 2-3, Anderson 0-2, young 0-1, Clark 0-3. Totals 8-23
Cheyenne – Totals 7-24
WP: Aiden Lebrun (3.0) 4H, 3K, 2BB, Brenner Colman (3.0) 3H, 1K, 1BB
LP: Jonaven (5.0) 8H, 5K, 7BB
Gillette 4 7 0 6 – 17 11 1
Riverton 0 1 1 1 – 3 4 3
Trash Pandas – Anderson 1-2, Majdic 0-2, Hull 0-2, Colman 1-2, Mowery 0-2, Heil 0-2, Hutchison 1-2, Young 0-1, Coombs 1-1, Lebrun 0-1 Totals 4-17
Gillette – Totals 11-25
WP: Logyn (2.0) 1H, 2K, 0BB, Wyatt 3H, 3K, 0BB
LP: John Hull (1.) 1H, 1K, 2BB, Douglas Mowery (1.2) 3H, 1K, 1BB, Cambden Heil (.2) 1H, 1K, 2BB, Aaron Hutchison (.2) 6H, 0K, 0BB
Cheyenne 1 4 0 0 0 – 5 2 2
Riverton 3 0 3 0 0 – 6 1 2
Trash Pandas – Clark 0-0 , Holiday-Rico 0-2, Anderson 0-1, Majdic 0-1, Colman 1-3, Lebrun 0-1, Mowery 0-0, Heil 0-0, Hutchison 0-2, Young 0-1, Corbin Coombs 0-1. Totals 1-14
Cheyenne – Totals 2-18
WP: JJ Majdic (4.0) 2H, 8K, 3BB, Aiden Lebrun (1.0) 0H, 0K, 0BB
LP: Kendal (2.2) 0H, 3K, 1BB, Jonaven (2.1) 1H, 3K, 9BB
Jackson 4 4 12 – 20 8 1
Riverton 1 0 5 – 6 8 5
Trash Pandas – Aaron Hutchison 0-2, Basyn Anderson 0-2, JJ Majdic 1-2, Brenner Colman 1-2, Cambden Heil 1-2, Douglas Mowery 1-1, Dayne Young 0-1, Aiden Lebrun 2-2, Miles Holiday-Rico 1-2, Greyson Clark 1-2. Totals 8-18
Jackson – Totals 8-20
WP: Callaway (2.0) 3H, 2K, 1BB, Knox (1.0) 5H, 4K, 3BB
LP: Brenner Colman (1.0) 2H, 1K, 3BB, Aiden LeBrun (1.0) 4H, 1K, 3BB, John Hull (.1) )H, 0K, 2BB, Cambden Heil 2H, 1K, 5BB, Douglas Mowery (.1) 0H, 0K, 0BB