Otto Baseball rolls on

Otto Baseball rolls on

by Stephanie Tolman 

 

It was a full week for Otto baseball players. Both minors teams hosted two teams from Greybull on Tuesday night. Venom lost to the AW Hunt team 11-4. Some key players in the game were Reece Allen who pitched her first game to Kobe Winters who was catching for the first time. Ava Wennberg had a great stop at second base with a near out at first. Coach Will Houchin said, “First loss is under our belt and we brushed ourselves off and will be moving onward and upward.” 

The Fangs lost to Greybull Dental, 10-9. Nicholas Worthen started out pitching and pitched one inning and part of another.  When he reached the maximum number of pitches, Porter Aagard took over and finished the game. Coach Janalee Call said, “It was the first time pitching in a game for both and they showed great potential! The players showed great improvement since the last game. They were more confident up at bat and once they got on base, I knew they would steal around and score. They had some awesome base running and I’m very proud of them all.”

Thursday night, the Majors team headed to Greybull. Call knew that with their previous win over Greybull, she would have room to change things up.  “I changed pitchers every inning and moved players to different positions to gain more experience and to make it a more competitive game,” she said.  “All the pitchers did well.” In the last inning Carlos Padilla saw his first game experience at the catcher position. Reece Allen and Armando Padilla were brought up from the minors teams and gained some good experience. Will Hatch hit a home run in the first inning and then a grand slam in the second and Matthew Tempany caught a pop fly. The fourth inning was a little rough on Otto as an injury at third base took Armando out of the game and Greybull scored two runs but Otto still finished on top, 7-2. 

The Otto Rattlers Babe Ruth team saw their first action of the season with a double header in Worland on Saturday. Main coach Daniel Call was unable to be in attendance and so Janalee Call stepped in to cover. She said, “Worland is quite a young and inexperienced team compared to our team. They didn’t have strong pitchers, so we were able to hit off of them or be walked and the seven-run mercy rule was in play.” Toby McNulty pitched the entire game and with the help of his fielders was able to keep it scoreless. With State Track the same weekend and a lack of players, Matthew Tempany was brought up from majors and did a wonderful job. “Between the two games, he caught four pop flies in four different positions. He also was the one that Worland picked on most to try to pick off at first and third. Multiple times he had to dive back to the base, but he never got out. His uniform was by far the dirtiest at the end of the games,” Call said. The Rattlers topped Worland 17-0. 

The second game of the double header had Rykael Andrew pitching after the previous game at catcher. He pitched the first three innings and then Selena Call finished the game. The first inning ended with the Rattlers getting five outs. The first batter got out at second and then the bases were loaded. The next and final batter hit a pop up between center and Tempany and he caught the ball. All three of Worland’s runners failed to tag up and so Tempany threw to Cody McNulty at first who touched the base and threw to Eve McNulty at second and she threw to William Parsley at third for a total of five outs. “It was beautiful to watch as they knew exactly where to throw the ball,” said Call. “The players really had their heads in the game, which you need to be successful in baseball. Our players also stole and ran the bases aggressively and confidently.” There was more excitement in the fourth inning as Andrews got on base with a solid hit to center. Camden Jones was right behind with a deep ball to right and Andrews waited at first to see if it would be caught. When it wasn’t, it almost became a footrace between Andrews and Jones but both were safe at third and second. The Rattlers ended the game with a huge 24-2 win. 

Both minors teams will be in Lovell on Saturday with games at 5:30 and 7:00 p.m. while the majors team will be in Lovell on Tuesday, May 31 at 5:30 p.m.

 

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