Shawn O’Brate
RIVERTON – This past weekend was not only a large gathering of adults watching their family walk across stages and receiving diplomas but it was also a time for some of the younger children to be seen running across the home plate and the outfield at the old Babe Ruth stadium in Riverton.
Over 100 burgers were served, first pitches by Fremont Chevy and Home Source Realty were thrown, and raffle tickets were sold with the potential prizes including guns, ammunition, hats, duffle bags, and more.
The River City Trash Pandas finally made the stadium feel like home as the crowd packed in to watch them take on Casper’s Valor Vikings 12U team that they started off the season beating three games in a row.
These games would go very similarly for the Trash Pandas and their young team full of strong batters. Those batters would hit 12 hits, score 12 runs and score at least two runs in all but one inning of the first game.
To help put the game out of reach after it remained close into the fourth inning was the pitching by the Trash Pandas, striking out eleven batters and only allowing six Vikings players to reach first base off walks or HBPs.
Even with one more error than the Vikings the Trash Pandas would dominate the first game, doubling the Valor Vikings score with a final of 12–6 in favor of River City.
“The key factor was hot bats and solid fielding by all,” coach Dave Jost after the weekend was over, “but even more so it was the lock down pitching. Camden Heil and Brenner Colman in the opener…Aiden LeBrun and Ryan Bowstring were fire [too].”
After the fourth win over the Vikings this season the team would take the diamond one more time against the vigorous Casper team who would make this second matchup much, much closer than the first.
It all started with a four-run first inning for the Vikings, hopping up on the Trash Pandas early to put the heat on them to try and grip that winning streak and keep it going.
The Trash Pandas would respond slowly-but-surely by scoring one run in the first two innings while also keeping the Vikings held to zero runs after the first inning onslaught. In the third inning the Pandas would put it into high gear, scoring three runs to help put them above the Vikings by a score of 5–4.
Then it was just up to the Trash Pandas to keep the comeback alive by not allowing any more hits or runs for the rest of the game, something they did spectacularly in the fifth inning with three batters for the Vikings all striking out to end their chances of beating River City so far this season.
The game would end 6–4 in the Trash Pandas’ favor, and leading to the team winning three of their previous four games dating back to last Sunday’s games in Colorado.
Jost was noticeably excited about the team’s performance over the weekend but he was even more enthused about the crowd that showed up, and not just for the raffles.
“The crowd was enthusiastic and all around the field,” Jost said, “the parking lot was overflowing and we had a good home crowd…”
But Jost was the most happy with the goals that his team has set and exceeded so far this season:
“So far this year we’ve reached goals at unexpected pace,” Jost said, “we beat a good Colorado team down in Denver, took second in the consolation bracket and batted .487 as a team against solid pitching. This weekend we batted .420, which shows our bats are coming alive.”
“This was a fun weekend, with an emphasis on fun,” Jost continued, “We wanted all our players to get plenty of field time…everyone batted and the positions were fluid.”
The Trash Pandas’ next games are scheduled for June 3 – 5th in Gillette for the ‘Boys of Summer’ with the opposing team yet to be announced. Be sure to keep looking for Trash Pandas news through Fremont County Sports or through their Facebook page.
