Lovell Mustangs swept to state title in 1986

The year was 1986 – not 2025 – when the Lovell Mustangs won their first American Legion state championship, despite erroneous regional media reports to the contrary, and for those who played on that championship team, the memories are still vivid.

In those days, American Legion Baseball had two major divisions – A and B -- and high school sports was divided into AA, A, B and C – different letters than today but equally legitimate titles when won. The only difference was that the winner of the Division B state title went on to play in the A state tournament, there being no regional tournament for Class B.

The Mustangs opened the state tournament Sunday, July 27, in Casper against Riverton, who had knocked off Cheyenne the previous day, 8-7. Riverton was no match for the Mustangs, who won 7-1. Lovell then turned right around and beat Casper Sunday afternoon, 8-5.

The wins advanced the Mustangs to the semifinals, where they beat Northeast (Newcastle, Upton and Moorcroft) 4-3 Monday evening. After Northeast eliminated Wheatland, a Lovell-NE rematch was played Tuesday afternoon, and this time the Mustangs clobbered Northeast 15-5 to win the state title. Lovell outscored the four state tournament opponents 34-14 and improved to 30-9 on the season.

“We knew it would be between Northeast and us, and if we played the way we could, there would be no question of us taking it,” shortstop Joey Mickelson said after the championship game. “It was like destiny. You could see it coming.”

“The ones who have been there all three years were excited,” Lovell coach Ron Osborne said at the time. “We could see the progress those three years. The kids knew they had the better team but that they would have to work for it. There was a lot of excitement.”

Randy Wacker was the tournament Most Valuable Player and was joined on the all-tournament team by Mickelson, Dan Russell, Tim Winland and Tommy Flood. Wacker and Russell each won two games on the mound for the Mustangs during the tournament, and Osborne said at the time that pitching made the difference in the tournament.

“We had the three best pitchers there overall,” he said, pointing to Wacker, Russell and Winland.

And like 2025, coaches and players appreciated the fan support at the tournament.

“There were a lot of people up there,” Osborne said. “It was nice having ‘em. When the games were close, we had some backing.”

The games

There was clutch play throughout the tournament for the Mustangs. In the Riverton win, Wacker and Brian May sparked a six-run first inning with a two-run double and a two-run single, respectively. Flood added an RBI single. Meanwhile, Wacker fired a four-hitter, striking out 12 and walking two.

In the Casper win, the Mustangs scored one in the first on back-to-back doubles by Mickelson and Flood and three in the second in an inning that included a triple by Kelly Spann and an RBI single by Wacker. Casper went up 5-4, but Lovell rallied for four in the sixth. Russell retired six of the final seven batters he faced to seal the win.

Northeast sweep

Game one against Northeast was a nail-biter. Northeast led 3-2 after five innings, but Spann ripped a two-run double in the bottom of the sixth and Wacker picked up the win on the mound with two innings of scoreless relief, working out of a bases-loaded jam in the fifth and retiring seven of the nine batters he faced. Winland was strong as the starter.

Northeast was the number two seed entering the tournament and clobbered Sheridan 18-3 to meet Lovell in the semis, so Osborne said the Mustangs may have been a little nervous in the first game, but they relaxed for the championship game and clobbered Northeast 15-5, banging out 18 hits in the process. Winland went five for five at the plate with two doubles, and Mickelson had three hits, Wacker, David Thatch and Scott Davis two hits apiece.

Russell went the distance on the mound, allowing seven hits and just one walk while fanning nine.

With a state title secured, the Mustangs played in the Class A tournament the following week in Worland. Lovell knocked off Torrington 12-2 in the first game, then fell to Gillette 17-9. The Mustangs held their own against Cheyenne in game three but fell 6-4, finishing the season 31-11. It was believed to be Lovell’s first 30-win season.

Members of the championship team were Flood, May, Mickelson, Russell, Spann, Thatch, Wacker, Winland, David Angell, Kent Averett, Tom Clark, Ken Davis, Scott Davis, Bob Frankowiak, Jim Graham, Gary Taylor, Steve Sessions, Jeff Williams and Brad Wolvington.

Looking back

State tournament MVP Wacker remembers the championship team well. The Mustangs were a veteran group that lost only Chuck Gams from the 1986 team and were solid all the way around.

“We had a great group of kids,” Wacker said. “We were state champs in basketball, and we did really well in football. We had a great group of kids.”

Wacker agreed that the pitching was “really, really good,” and he said the players were just dedicated to the sport.

“I had the key to the batting cage, so even when we weren’t in practice, David Angell and I would go over and hit off the pitching machine, just me and him. We turned it up to 100. That’s how you get good.”

A typical starting lineup might be Spann at third, Mickelson at shortstop, Russell at second or catcher and Thatch at first -- with Flood at catcher or Wacker when not pitching, May in centerfield and Winland in left, or vice versa for the outfielders, and another player in right.

To this day, Wacker remains proud of his baseball career. He went on to play in college at Kearney State in Nebraska and Lamar Community College in Colorado.

“At the time, baseball was everything to me,” Wacker said. “I wasn’t that good in basketball. I was pretty good in football, but baseball was my sport ever since I was a little kid. When I first came back 15-20 years ago, I ran into John Lee Mangus, and all he did was tell me about Little League stories, and people, when I first came back, said, ‘You’re that baseball player.’ So baseball was my sport.”

As a pitcher, Wacker said he learned how to pitch, rather than just throw.

“I threw a lot of junk, curve, knuckles,” he said. “I had a decent fastball, and in Babe Ruth, when Russ Walker was catching for me, he would tell the batter what I was throwing, and they still couldn’t hit it.

“I could scare people. I’d throw it at them, and then they would duck, and it would curve in. … Ray Nickle taught me how to throw a knuckleball, and I had a really good knuckleball that scared people. I pretty much did it (learned) on my own. I always played catch with my dad (Bruce). Baseball was my sport.”

Winland gave lots of credit for the team’s success to Coach Osborne.

“We had a good relationship with Coach Osborne,” Winland said. “I think Ron really took the program to the next level. He held us accountable throughout the season. We had consistent practices that were intense and prepared us for a championship level of play. Ron was an intense person himself, but he really cared about us and knew baseball and the combinations you have to have for a winning program with pitching and placement of kids in the field.

“So I think it starts at the top with coaching. Ron just was a good coach, and we had a good relationship with him, we wanted to play hard for him, we didn’t want to disappoint him every time we went out and played. And we knew from the previous year that a state championship was within reach. That was part of our aspirations, to win State, because we knew this was a really good team with the athletes we had on the team from our high success with the other sports.”

Even with the success the athletes had in other sports, Winland noted of that summer, “We just really loved and looked forward to playing baseball one more time, especially knowing that Joey (Mickelson) was coming back (after a year in college). Joey was our best player. Throughout the season Joey was just a natural. … Joey was just a special talent coming back playing at shortstop and as leadoff batter. He could always get on base, and he could hit the ball almost anywhere he wanted to.”

Winland and May switched between center and left field.

“Brian and I made a good combination and kind of solidified that part of the field, because Brian was fast,” Winland said. “I wasn’t fast, but I was quick. I could get a jump on the ball because I knew where it was coming off of the bat, so I typically played left, and Brian played center.

“We had good chemistry; we all got along. We wanted to play hard for the coach and the competitiveness of all of the individuals that were on the team from having had a good competitive experience from playing other sports. It just carried over into baseball, and a lot of them in that program were four-sport athletes. You just rolled from one season right into the next, and we did that for four years. It culminated with a state championship after we graduated our senior year.”

Winland said even with his success in football and basketball, his favorite sport may have been baseball.

“At that time we just loved baseball,” he said.

One of the interesting things about the Mustangs program at that time was that Coach Osborne ordered and had the team occasionally play in shorts, and Winland noted, “Ron brought in a more professional type attitude with the team and got us uniforms, and that summer we had it where we could wear pants or we could wear shorts with the socks up to the knees and everything like you’d see in a fast-pitch softball game.”

So when Winland texted Mickelson and Wacker after the Mustangs’ title last week, saying, “Hey, Lovell finally won one after 39 years,” Mickelson texted back and said, “Yeah, but we did it in shorts.”

However they did it, it was Lovell’s first American Legion state baseball title.