Casper Legion Baseball celebrates Senior Night

CASPER, Wyo. (Wyoming News Now) - The Casper Oilers hosted Alliance out of Nebraska for a doubleheader on Tuesday night. Between the two contests, Post 2 took some time to honor the contributions of its seniors to the program.

Each senior heard their name called as they were escorted down the first base line by their parents and given a commemorative bat for their time with the Oilers.

It was a large group of players and their families gathered along the first baseline Tuesday evening. Justin Wicks, Hunter Mogen, Kaeden Wilcox, Michael Nowakowski, Sawyer Nielsen, Shane Taggart, Maddox Houston, Ashton Armstrong, Carter McLean and Jake Sides make up the group of seniors this summer.

Sides was also treated with the opportunity to pitch to his younger brother Tucker playing catcher in the second game of the doubleheader, which he called “awesome.” He said it was hard to believe it was Senior Night for him.

“At the beginning of the night, I was like ‘Senior Night. No big deal,’” said Sides with a grin. “And then in between the games when we did that ceremony thing, everybody was, ‘Aw man it was awesome playing with you.’ And I was like, ‘Jeez.’ because the emotions started to hit me, and it’s just weird. [It’s] weird [the] last time playing on Lansing.”

The action on the field played the way of the Oilers in the first of the twin billing. The Oilers’ offense was knocking the ball all around the yard. Senior Shane Taggart provided plenty of fireworks for his senior brethren.

In the bottom of the second inning, Taggart drilled a long fly ball into the left-center field gap, which scored two of his teammates. He wasn’t content with just two RBIs, so he motored his way around the bases for an inside-the-park three-run homer. He’d add an RBI triple later in the bottom half of the second inning as well.

The Oilers would start the day with a 15-7 victory after five innings, but the emotions may have got the best of them in game two. They fell 4-2.

Post 2 will head down to Fort Collins this weekend to play in the Gabe Pando Memorial Wood Bat Tournament. Their first game is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. at Rocky Mountain High School on Friday against Rogue Baseball out of Denver.

Copyright 2022 Wyoming News Now. All rights reserved.