Colts roll past Grays

By Bobby Abplanalp
Wyoming Sports.org

Rain has been all too familiar with the Colts this season, as the team has struggled.

Not on Friday night. It was a picture-perfect night filled with blue sky and sunshine at Cowboy Field.

The result was a 19-2 whitewashing of the Greeley Grays in Mountain Collegiate Baseball League action.

The Colts, 6-7 on the season, are right behind the second-place Grays, who are 6-6.

“Sometimes when you get those gray skies, it can take the emotion out of a team a little bit,” Laramie manager Ryan Goodwin said. "I think maybe we are a warm-weather team. We just came ready to play tonight with a better attitude.”

Greeley scored the first run of the game in the opening inning, but it was all Laramie from that point on. The Colts answered with 10 runs in the bottom of the first and never looked back. Second baseman Tyler Kipke got things going with a RBI single, but it was third baseman Keith Towne’s three-run home run that sparked Laramie, which finished with six hits in that first inning.

“I think it was a good team effort,” Towne said. “I think we came out ready to go. We concentrated really hard today in batting practice to go out and put the ball in play a little more, and we worked on being a little more aggressive. I think it really paid off tonight.”

Towne was 4-of-5 from the plate, with three singles and the home run. Kipke also had four hits on the night with three singles, a triple and three RBI. The Colts out-hit the Grays 17-10 in the game.

Laramie pitcher Taylor Henry picked up the victory, striking out two in seven innings. Brandon Jamison pitched the final two innings.

The Colts are now 3-3 against the Grays this season.

“We really made a statement,” Towne said. “We really put it to them tonight and we needed to after the games we played against them this year. We showed them the kind of caliber ball club that we are, rather than the way we’ve been playing. It was (previously) not representative of the Laramie Colts.”

Goodwin agreed and said his players just woke up and realized that they were underachieving.

“We put our concentration on a couple of areas,” Goodwin said. “For example, we’ve been striking out way too much, especially with runners in scoring position. We only had one strikeout tonight and I think the guys took it upon themselves to come out and play with energy and passion.”

The Colts will return to action on Saturday, as they host rival Fort Collins in a doubleheader that begins at 1 p.m. The second game is scheduled for 6:35 p.m.