Range Riders Announce Four New Signings
KALISPELL, MT - The Glacier Range Riders have announced four new signings to join the team in 2025, including three players with previous Pioneer League experience and a catcher that finished his collegiate career at an SEC powerhouse. Angel Mendoza joins from the defending championship club, the High Wheelers, Grant Taylor and Luke Fennelly most recently played for the Billings Mustangs, while Parker Rowland finished up his collegiate career last spring with the University of Arkansas.
Angel Mendoza is coming off a summer where he totaled the best defensive statistics of any catcher in the league, nabbing over forty three percent of runners stealing. He manned the games behind the dish for one of the best pitching staffs in the league, calling pitches for the 2024 Pioneer League Pitcher of the Year and the 2024 PBL ERA leader. He also proved durable behind the plate, starting two thirds of the regular season games for Yolo, and all of the playoff games in their run to the league championship. Mendoza began his collegiate career at Cal State Northridge and would end his career at NAIA Union Commonwealth University in Kentucky where he batted .404 in 2023.
A two-year member of the Billings Mustangs, Luke Fennelly is another sure-handed addition with lots of experience at shortstop. In five years at Division III Loras College, Fennelly played in 171 games, hitting .299 and collecting nearly 300 bases. He graduated as one of the greatest players in DuHawk history, finishing with the most career runs scored, second in career doubles, and third in career hits, career home runs, and career stolen bases. His first summer of pro ball sent him to the United Shores Professional Baseball League, before he found a home in Montana the past two summers. Fennelly hit .270 and cracked 10 bombs for the Mustangs.
Grant Taylor is yet another collegiate legend. Taylor left Pullman, Washington, last spring as one of the most decorated players in Washington State baseball history. The 6'5" right hander played five years at Wazzu where he pitched in 57 games, racking up over 240 innings on the mound, and finishing 252 strikeouts, the third most in program history. He has some single game records for the Cougs as well. In 2024, he struck out 17 Huskies in a one-hit shutout win over Washington, the most K's in a single game for a Washington State player.
After stops at Arkansas State and Eastern Oklahoma State, Parker Rowland finished out his career with two years in Fayetteville playing with the Razorbacks. He was the primary option at catcher for Arkansas in 2023, where he started 42 games behind the dish. Defensively, he delivered a remarkable .998 fielding percentage with just one error committed and caught six of 24 runners stealing. The Razorbacks had a lot of success on the diamond those two years, posting 40+ wins and hosting an NCAA Regional each season.