JOPLIN, Mo– Saturday afternoon the Crowder Roughriders claimed the Region 16 Title after defeating St. Charles 13-2 in the Region 16 Championship game.

They advance to the District Tournament round which will be next weekend and the Roughriders will host it there in Neosho at Crowder College.

Brett Gastman picked up the win after going 5.33 IP, 8 hits, one ER, five strikeouts. Joe Hackmann came in relief to shut-down the Cougars in the later innings going 3.67 IP, one hit, 0 ER, five strikeouts!

Kolton Reynolds had himself a day going three-for-four with five RBI’s. Joe Reid also pitched in three RBI’s of his own after he hit a three-run homer in the third inning.

The Cougars led 1-0 going into the bottom of the second inning, but Reynolds delivered with a 2-RBI Double to give the Roughriders the lead 2-1.

Crowder went on to score 10 more runs leading into the 7th inning.

Dayvin Johnson, Cole Kitchens, Joey Morton, Tyler Favretto and Garrett Long each contributed an RBI of their own.

The Roughriders advance to the District Tournament which will be hosted by Crowder next weekend. Their opponents and game-times are still to be determined.

Crowder moves to 50-11 on the season and 30-3 in Region 16.

Here’s what the team had to say after the win.

Head Coach Travis Lallemand said, “”Today there was a lot of things, but you know the three run home run by Reid right there in the early innings really separated us, and you know they’re a quality club and they’re dangerous offensively. We needed to separate ourselves on the scoreboard for sure. And they did exactly that. You know, one with two outs, one with two strikes. That’s always our thing. We can do that we got a chance to be successful”.

Joe Reid said, “”It feels good. It’s the standard around here. It’s just another game for us. But we’re prepared and it took a lot of work to get here. So it’s pretty fulfilling. It was definitely a learning experience at the beginning because we’re really young. We had a lot of young guys, a lot of new faces. And I think we had a little bit of a break end period, but once we got momentum going at the end, it’s definitely carried and we keep putting them together. So hopefully we can keep it up”.

Josh Livingston said, “”I mean, it’s a whirlwind we’ve been waiting for it, you know. We came close, 7th inning, we’re like itching for it and we’re just waiting for the dogpile, man. I mean, it’s it’s so cool. I mean everybody on the field has contributed in some way, whether it’s fans or parents or teammates, coaches, so you know having everybody out here to celebrate the moments’ awesome”.