Pair of Lakers having huge years
SANDPOINT — One bats leadoff, the other cleanup.
One is fast and leads the team in steals, the other a classic power hitter straight out of central casting who leads the team in home runs.
Both can flat rake the baseball, and both are the prime reason why the Peak Sand and Gravel Lakers are having one of the best American Legion seasons in Sandpoint in recent memory.
Cole Tonnemacher, a power hitting lefty who leads his team with 11 home runs, 18 doubles and a whopping 65 RBIs, has teamed with Joel Cramer, who leads the Lakers with a .472 batting average, 56 runs and 19 stolen bases, to give the Lakers a one-two punch as good as any in the area.
Head coach Mike Givens says both have a passion for the game that helps makes them the players they are.
“Cole has a heart of gold. He’ll do whatever it takes to win, just a complete team player. Anything you ask, he’s there, in fact, he’s there before you ask,” said Givens, who echoed a similar sentiment about Cramer. “He will do anything a coach asks him to do, and he learns and applies what he has learned quickly.”
Cramer has been tearing the cover off the ball of late, including a stretch in the district tournament where he went a sizzling 12-15 from the plate, including two inside the park homers as he drove pitches all over the field.
As solid as he’s been at the plate, Cramer might be even more valuable as a centerfielder, where his range and speed have led to some highlight reel catches.
“He is a great athlete with instincts that are hard to teach, and he loves to play the game hard and get dirty,” described Givens of Cramer. “He will support his teammates even when things look dim. He epitomizes what a team player is and represents what a team captain should do.”
Tonnemacher has hit some prodigious home runs, including a pair of moon shots that cleared the football locker room on the fly and split the goal posts in deep right center, both places that rarely, if ever, get reached. The power stroke has earned him a fitting nickname among his teammates: The Tonnebomber.
Unlike many home run hitters, he doesn’t strike out a lot, and is hitting a robust .438 on the season.
“I don’t go up with a plan, I just go up to hit,” said Tonnemacher, adding the success of this season stems from good team chemistry. “We’ve been together a while, and our lineup just kind of fits together properly this year.”
Tonnemacher has had an equally solid year as the team’s ace, sporting a 13-5 record with an ERA in the twos. While he doesn’t overpower hitters, he features command of five pitches: A splitter, curve, knuckle curve, two-seam fastball and four-seam fastball. The vast repertoire and mixing of speeds keeps hitters off-balance. The crafty lefty also had high praise for his two catchers, Eddo Feyen and Corey Neer, crediting them with much of his pitching success.
The Lakers open the state tournament on Thursday in Burley, where they’ll face the Emmett Blue Devils in the first round of the eight-team tournament.