Welcome everybody to the Keeping Score podcast from the Daily Inter Lake and Hagadone Sports Network, I am Josh Amick. This episode of the Range Riders recap, I will discuss the great week they had against the Great Falls Voyagers, the reigning Pioneer League player of the week and some new faces to the ballclub so without further ado let’s get right into it.

The Range Riders dropped the first game of the series 4-3 where their comeback attempt fell just short. Tyler Clayton made his debut for the team and pitched well through the first three innings but …

Welcome everybody to the Keeping Score podcast from the Daily Inter Lake and Hagadone Sports Network, I am Josh Amick. This episode of the Range Riders recap, I will discuss the great week they had against the Great Falls Voyagers, the reigning Pioneer League player of the week and some new faces to the ballclub so without further ado let’s get right into it.

The Range Riders dropped the first game of the series 4-3 where their comeback attempt fell just short. Tyler Clayton made his debut for the team and pitched well through the first three innings but a 30-minute rain delay seemed to throw off his momentum when the game resumed and he gave up all four runs in the fifth. The Range Riders would score a run in the bottom of the eighth and ninth inning but couldn’t find the clutch at-bat needed to win the game.

In my opinion, the rain delay seemed like it benefitted Great Falls as Clayton only allowed two base runners through the first four innings before things went south in the fifth. The Range Riders bats also couldn’t find a clutch hit as they had the bases loaded in both the 8th and 9th innings but couldn’t drive home a run. But in the following game, they were able to find a clutch hit, in my game of the week.

After being held scoreless for eight innings the Range Riders were down 1-0, going into the bottom half of the 9th. Andy Atwood led off the inning by being hit by a pitch and advanced all the way to third on an error by the Voyagers’ pitcher. The next two batters were retired and it looked like the comeback was going to fall short for the second straight game but things got interesting… The Voyagers elected to intentionally walk the left-handed Chad Castillo, to face the reigning Pioneer League player of the week Mason Dinesen. In a 2-2 count, Voyagers pitcher Dayan Reinoso was called for a balk and it forced home the tying run in Atwood and pinch-runner Gavin Tonkel into scoring position, here is Dinesen’s comments on the balk.

A few pitches later, Dinesen delivered to win the game.

In game three of the series, the Range Riders' bats wasted no time, putting up 6 runs in the first three innings, capped off by a two-run home run by Chad Castillo. Freddy Guilamo and Ajay Sczepkowski would also add on solo home runs, en route to an easy 9-1 win. Starting pitcher Cullen Kafka would strike out 9 over five scoreless innings to lower his ERA to 1.98.

Friday’s game was another dominant performance by Range Riders pitching as they allowed one run in a 4-1 win. This time it was starter Trevor Baker, who allowed one run over five innings. Nick Block and Christian Kirtley would drive in two runs a piece to lead Glacier to victory.

Saturday we saw a record tying performance by starter Brady Held who tied a Range Riders record with 11 strikeouts, en route to a strong seven innings pitched and only one run given up. It was a Range Riders season-high and tied with 2 others for a Range Riders record. Here is what Held had to say..

Andy Atwood homered on the first pitch he saw in the bottom of the first to start the scoring and they would capitalize on some wild pitches to lead them to a 7-3 victory and their fourth straight win.

Sunday the Range Riders exploded for a 20-5 victory and welcomed a familiar face back in Gabe Howell, who led the Range Riders last season with a .418 OBP. After spending some time with the Savannah Bananas and the Lexington Legends of the Atlantic League, he returned to Glacier to get back to playing competitive baseball. However, it was the season debut of Ty Penner that stole the show as he was recently activated off the injured list and wasted no time homering in his first two at-bats.

Chad Castillo also homered twice for the Range Riders and Christian Kirtley added another to tie Castillo as the second highest on the team.

That's it for the scoring recap. So after a tough first game of the series the Range Riders responded in a big way, by winning the next five and carrying a lot of momentum into their next series with the Pioneer League leading Missoula PaddleHeads, so let's look ahead to what to expect in that series.

The Range Riders currently trail the PaddleHeads by three games for the top spot in the Pioneer League. One of the key factors in trimming into that lead is going to be the matchup between the Range Riders pitchers and the PaddleHeads potent lineup. Adam Fogel is second in the Pioneer League in average and homeruns but he is not the only one to look out for. The PaddleHeads are first in the league in team hits, runs, doubles, RBIs, homeruns, OBP, Slugging. The Range Riders starters have only allowed 3 earned runs over the last 27 innings pitched but that was against Great Falls who sit at the bottom of the standings. Another key factor to this series is going to be the Range Riders speed. The Range Riders are way ahead of everyone else in the Pioneer League with 88 stolen bases. The next closest team is Billings with 55. Stealing bases is a way that they are able to generate runs and will be crucial in this series.

Now in case you missed it, after adding Ajay Sczepkowski and Tyler Clayton from Georgia Gwinnett last week they also added catcher Nick Gore from New Mexico state. This week, they activated Ty Penner from the injured list and welcomed back Gabe Howell to the team who was with the Range Riders last season and led the team in OBP.

Mason Dinesen was also named as the PBL player of the week last week where he hit .536 with four home runs and 11 RBI’s. He cooled down a little this week and if he can get hot again it will make a very compelling series with the two best teams in the Pioneer League.

That’s all I have for this week’s Range Riders recap, they begin their big six game road series Tuesday, before returning home to face Great Falls again, hopefully in first place. Thank you for joining me and listening to Keeping Score from the Daily Inter Lake and the Hagadone Sports Network. I have been your host Josh Amick and until next time, take care.