Ryan Divish
Havre Daily News Sports Editor
rdivish@havredailynews.com
The Havre High fast-pitch softball team will get in plenty of at-bats, fielding opportunities and innings this weekend as it travels to the Butte Central Invitational, starting on Friday.
"It's a really good weekend for us," said Havre High head coach Bob Evans. "We get to play four games which means a lot of innings for our kids."
With such an inexperienced team, every game, every inning, every at-bat can only help them.
"It gives us a chance to get plenty of at-bats against good pitching," Evans said. "Hopefully, it will help our bats kind of come around."
Havre will open play on Friday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. against the Glendive Red Devils.
Glendive is led by Whitefish transfer Debbie Donsbach, who has been the Red Devils' best pitcher all season. Glendive also gets solid contributions from Katelyn Cunningham and shortstop Kalli Stanhope, along with Shiloh Wynne, Rikki Berg, and Rachel DeKaye.
"They have pretty good team," Evans said. "We watched their young kids play last summer and they were tough."
Havre will face Ronan in the second game of the day. The match-up will take on added meaning as it will be a conference game.
"It's a big game for us," Evans said. "I really think it's a game we can be competitive in."
Havre lost a tough 7-4 decision to Ronan earlier in the season. The Ponies were once again victim to untimely hitting, as they couldn't seem to get a that clutch hit with runners in scoring position.
"We were missing some key players in that first game," Evans said. "We'll have them back for this game and be a little deeper. I really think we are a better team than we were in the first meeting."
On Saturday, the Ponies will face a very good Hamilton team that roughed them up 15-0 earlier in the season.
"We know Hamilton is a very good team," Evans said. "They just have tremendous athletes at almost every position."
The Ponies will round out the tournament with a very tough game with Class B powerhouse Noxon. The Red Devils are led by pitcher Courtney Anderson and along with all-state catcher Bonnie Smith.
With the solid competition, Evans hopes his team will raise its level of play.
"We need not go in there and be intimidated by these good teams," Evans said. "We need to put the ball in play because it give us a chance to score runs. We don't have the type of pitchers that are going to shut teams out, so we have to score some runs.
"If we can score some runs, I really think we can get a couple wins this weekend."
