TORRINGTON – The Torrington Tiger struggling in the early innings continued on Tuesday, June 18 doubleheader sweep, at the hands of conference foe Douglas.
The Cats came out and scored runs in the first inning of each game, while the Tigers scored their first runs of the games in the fifth and sixth innings in the 10-3 and 7-1 losses.
In the first game, Torrington handed Douglas 1-0 lead courtesy of a throwing error, and Douglas backed it up with a two-run home run to grab a 3-0 lead.
Offensively for the Tigers, Sam Firminhac tallied a single in the first inning, but Douglas recorded 11 straight outs before Tristen Kingsley laid down a bunt single in the top of the fifth.
“We are still trying to figure out how to come out ready to go from the first inning,” coach Kyle Nighswonger said. “We have some guys who struck the ball early in the game and made some adjustments. We hit a lot of at-em balls tonight. We couldn’t seem to scratch them out.”
Two batters later, Deagan Keith drove in Kingsley to draw the Tigers back within four.
Douglas exploded for five runs in the home half of the fifth to push the lead to 10-1.
In the top of the seventh, Kingsley led off the inning with a solo home run, the first of his career.
“He had a great at-bat,” Nighswonger said. “It was probably a six, eight pitch at-bat. He fouled some pitches off, worked and waited. The kid hung a curve ball, and someone finally sat back and did what we needed to do with those.”
Kingsley and Keith went 2-for-3 at the plate, combining for three runs scored and two RBIs.
Cameron Murphy was tagged with the loss, striking out two over four innings of work.
In game two, a pair of singles in the bottom of the first gave the Cats a 1-0 lead.
The score remained the same until the bottom of the fourth.
The Tigers had base runners in six of the seventh innings, including getting the leadoff the runners on in the second, fourth and sixth innings. However, the sixth was the only inning which the leadoff runner crossed home plate.
In the inning, Murphy reached on an error and a sacrifice fly from Kingsley, drove in what proved to be Torrington’s only run of the game.
“We had a some really good at-bats tonight,” Nighswonger said. “Kids hit the ball pretty hard, but they were right at people. You are going to have games like that where you can’t get anything to fall. Sooner or later they are going to start falling. We just have to keep our nose to the grind and keep coming out every day looking to get better.”
The Tigers travel to Laramie this weekend for the Dooley Oil Classic. Torrington will face Rock Springs on Thursday, June 20 at 5 p.m., Dickinson, N.D. at 12:15 p.m. Friday and Laramie on Saturday at 7 p.m. On Sunday, the Tigers will play a yet to be determined from the second pool at a time also yet to be determined.
“We are going to face some teams that we normally don’t get to play,” Nighswonger said. “We look to get some revenge against Laramie on Saturday. We’ll see a lot of out of the area teams, but it will be good to see some teams that we don’t normally face. We’ll challenge the boys and see how they respond after a couple tough conference losses.”
