Fort Collins – Ryan Beck picked a mighty good time to have the best day of his young high school career.
The Fort Collins sophomore pitcher stymied Rocky Mountain’s potent bats Saturday and helped his own cause by going 4-for-4 at the plate in the Lambkins’ 14-4, five-inning rout of the Lobos.
“Rocky is a good team, but we just stuck it to them today,” said Beck, who improved to 3-2 on the mound this season.
The win proved critical for Fort Collins in the Front Range League race, improving the Lambkins to 5-2 with one week remaining and 10-7 overall. Fort Collins sits behind Monarch and Northglenn in the standing, and plays the Norse to wrap up the league schedule. Rocky Mountain lost its second league game of the week, dropping to 4-2 and 11-5 overall.
With Rocky Mountain mostly going scoreless against Beck, the Lambkins’ bats were busy against Lobos starting pitcher Alex Kelly.
Fort Collins, which scored in each of the five innings, plated two runs in the first. Joe Schmidtbauer came home on Bryan Peters’ error at third base. That was followed by the first of Beck’s four hits, an RBI single to right that scored Garrett Houts.
“Ryan’s going to have a lot more days like that. He’s just a sophomore,” Lambkins coach Brad Deal said. “He’s just so confident, and he just got stronger as this one went along.”
Fort Collins stretched the lead to 5-0 and put an end to Kelly’s day when Brian Jenkins belted a three-run homer over the left-center field fence.
“We’re just not playing very good baseball right now, and we have to find a way to turn it around,” Rocky Mountain coach Scott Bullock said. “We have a very good ballclub, and we have shown that at times this season, but right now we are just not getting very good starting pitching.”
Six Lobos pitchers gave up 16 hits. Brandyn Russell went 3-for-4 for Fort Collins and drove in three runs.
Rocky Mountain took Beck deep twice, with Kelly and Nic Wunsch hitting drives over the left-field fence.
Lobos shortstop Andy Burns went 2-for-3, including a triple.
Fort Collins 232 25 – 14 16 0
Rocky Mountain 000 31 – 4 4 3
Fort Collins – Schmidtbauer ss 1-3-0-0, Jenkins rf 3-2-2-4, Houts cf 4-1-1-0, Broman 3b 3-1-1-0, Beck p 4-0-4-3, Green cf 0-2-0-0, Johnstone dh 4-1-2-1, Flax 2b 0-0-0-0, Russell 1b 4-1-3-3, Tynan c 4-0-2-0, Sakala cr 0-3-0-0, Vickers lf 1-0-1-1. Totals 28-14-16-12.
Rocky Mountain – Marquez 2b 3-0-0-0, Peters 3b 3-0-0-0, Burns ss 3-1-2-0, Stouffer 1b 1-1-0-0, Kelly p-lf 2-1-1-3, Ozzello lf-rf 2-0-0-0, Stone dh 1-0-0-0, Towne cf 0-0-0-0, Brooks p 0-0-0-0, Gonzales p 0-0-0-0, Trumper p-ss 0-0-0-0, Bean p 0-0-0-0, Rafiti c 2-0-0-0, Wunsch rf-cf 2-1-1-1. Totals 19-4-4-4.
E – Peters, Marquez, Ozzello. LOB – Fort Collins 6; Rocky Mountain 2. Caught stealing – Green, Russell. SAC – Jenkins, Vickers. 2B – Russell. 3B – Burns. HR – Jenkins, two on in second; Kelly, two on in fourth; Wunsch, solo in fifth.
Batteries – Beck and Tynan; Kelly, Brooks (2), Gonzales (3), Trumper (5), Burns (5), Bean (5) and Rafiti. W – Beck (3-2). L – Kelly (2-1). WP – Burns. Time – 1:42.
