CARRINGTON — One of the most experienced teams in the North Dakota State Amateur Baseball Class AA state tournament is the Carrington Redbirds with a team that consists of six current or former college baseball players heading into the tournament.
The youngest college baseball player on the team is Kyle Leapaldt who just finished his redshirt freshman year at Bismarck State College. Leapaldt has played in 81 games for the Mystics, hitting .448 with 27 home runs and 116 RBIs. Leapaldt also pitched for the Mystics where he has made 15 appearances compiling a 6.04 ERA in 25.1 innings of work.
“It’s fun, I enjoy it because it’s not as stressful as college baseball was,” Leapaldt said. “I can lay back and learn a few things from them and play baseball.”
The team is led by Tim Ranum, a former Jimmies player and assistant coach and current Carrington high school baseball head coach. By virtue of playing and coaching with the Jimmies and then staying in the area to coach baseball, Ranum has spent a lot of time at Jack Brown Stadium and looks at the stadium fondly.
“Jack Brown is a second home,” Ranum said. “I think this is past summer our legion team played in nine games there, and we’ve won a lot of big games there in the past. Add to that my memories in college and when I go there and a lot of our guys, it’s a second home. To see Tom Gould, Danny Fischer and Penny Gengler and all the other guys down at the ball field is just one of the constants of life.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Outside of Ranum, the team also includes former Jimmie Braxton Hewitt and current senior Hayden Brown. During his career, Brown has played in 44 games, hitting .246 with five home runs and 13 RBIs.
Ranum is looking for impacts from three recent college players in Leapaldt, Hewitt and Shipman to make an impact if the team has a chance to go all the way.
“Kyle Leapaldt, a kid that just finished his second year at BSC (Bismarck State College),” Ranum said. “I think he was a JUCO All-American twice or something like that. I think obviously if he has a good tournament he has the potential to do a lot of things for us. He has a good arm, pitching-wise, and he’s a great hitter and he can play shortstop. Obviously, he keys us, Braxton Hewitt, played at Jamestown a couple years, another good player for us. Jayden Shipman just finished his senior year at Valley City State, so those three guys are probably key for us.”
Ranum said the key for the Redbirds will be to get good performances on the mound.
“We’re a team that we haven’t played one game together at all this year,” Ranum said. “We got four or five guys that play somewhat regularly during the summer, the rest of us we’re one game a year it feels like. We feel like we have good arms, so if we pitch well that gives us a chance to obviously win a game because I don’t know how well we’ll hit, we don’t play enough.”
The Redbirds open the tournament at 2 p.m. Friday, Aug. 12, when they face Tolna. While the barnstorming nature of amateur baseball means teams don’t know a tremendous amount about the teams they are facing, Ranum remembers battling Tolna in American Legion baseball during the early 2010s and is looking forward to facing them again. Ranum is anticipating having to face former University of Minnesota-Crookston hurler, Jayden Grover.
Ranum being one of the veterans on the team takes a leadership role on the team having coached some of the players when they were in high school or on the Carrington legion team.
“It’s surreal,” Ranum said. “I usually catch a lot of grief from the guys when I make a mistake or they get on me for other things… (It is) a lot of fun seeing these guys again,and they just love baseball which is something that makes me happy as a coach, that they still have something to give back to the game.”
"heavy" - Google News
August 12, 2022 at 06:00PM
https://ift.tt/p8HvWSk
College heavy Redbirds want to go deep in AA amateur state tourney - The Jamestown Sun
"heavy" - Google News
https://ift.tt/xtVHWU1
https://ift.tt/tMD6P87
heavy
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "College heavy Redbirds want to go deep in AA amateur state tourney - The Jamestown Sun"
Post a Comment