Worland Wildfires place third at Heart Mountain classic

CODY - The U14 Worland Wildfires softball team saw their first action of the season at the Heart Mountain classic on May 21-22.

The Wildfires played a total of seven games and earned a third-place finish at the classic.

Opening pool play for the tournament the Wildfires led most of the game but committed a few costly errors that resulted in a 10-9 loss to Rock Springs. However, the team would bounce back in the next two games as they scored a combined 50 runs while only allowing nine against Riverton's U14 and U16 teams. In those two games Kendra Garcia, Ellie Martinez and Vivian Mosbroker each had inside-the-park home runs.

Worland played the U16 Riverton team again to start the tournament portion, this time though things would not go as smoothly for the Wildfires. In the first inning they spotted Riverton nine runs but from that point on Worland allowed only one more run. The Wildfires slowly chipped away at Riverton's lead and in the bottom of the fifth inning, they scored the game's winning run for the 11-10 victory.

Next for Worland they matched up against Casper's U16 team and lost 18-7, in the loss Carmen Buckman, Zoe Fernandez, Garcia and Raychel Duffy had a hit apiece. The team rebounded against Cody winning 15-8. For their final game of the tournament the Wildfires ran out of steam and again lost to Rock Springs this time by a score of 17-1.

Both Wildfire teams, U10 and U14, will travel to Casper this weekend for the Casper Classic Summer Kickoff Fast Pitch tournament on June 4 to the 5.

"We're looking at both teams to compete, play hard and win some games this weekend, it should be a lot of fun," said coach Dave Coronado.