Chris Peterson Havre Daily News cpeterson@havredailynews.com
The Havre High softball team began its third season this weekend and walked away with encouraging signs, despite splitting its two games with Glasgow and conference opponent Browning. The Ponies opened their season on Friday night against Glasgow at the Sixth Avenue Memorial Softball Field. Havre hung around for a while against a strong Glasgow team, but the Ponies where overwhelmed by a solid pitching effort from Glasgow’s Kelsie Archambeault and a heavy-hitting Glasgow offense in an 18-7 loss. Archambeault earned the victory for Glasgow, while Steph Stremcha was credited with the loss for the Ponies after she surrendered seven runs in four innings of work. “Glasgow had a very strong pitcher,” HHS head coach Bob Evans said. “She is very good. I have seen her pitch for a few years now and she is not a rookie. I don’t think that we will see anyone as good as her in our conference unless there is someone out there that I don’t know about. “I thought that Steph threw pretty well,” Evans added. “Going into the game, I was only going to pitch her four innings no matter what the score was because I didn’t want to push her too hard this early in the season.” Katlin Anderson kicked off the scoring in the top of the first inning by belting a solo home run over the newly erected fence in the outfield, giving the Scotties an early 1-0 lead. The Ponies responded in the bottom half of the inning when Sam Mack scored on a double by Erika Briese, who would later score on a groundout to give the Ponies a 2-1 advantage. HHS held a 3-1 lead entering the top of the third, but fell behind after a pair of errors led to a four-run inning for the Scotties. Glasgow added to its lead in the fourth inning when a single by Whitney Swanson scored two runs to make it 7-3. Havre pulled to within three runs at 7-4 in the fifth inning after Briese scored on a single by Karly Evans. But the Scotties busted the game wide open by scoring 11 runs over the final two innings. “We had a chance, but we just didn’t make any plays behind the pitcher,” Bob Evans said. “We had opportunities to get out of those big innings, but we didn’t make the plays, so I was a little disappointed about that.” On Saturday, the Ponies rebounded from their defeat at home by earning a conference road win at the hands of the Browning Indians by the score of 17-5 in six innings. Stremcha was stellar on the mound for the Ponies, earning the completegame victory after holding the Indians to five runs on three hits while striking out 10. “Steph really pitched well,” Bob Evans said. “She walked five batters, so she struggled a little bit there, but she pitched the whole game and she had her pitches working a lot better than she did on Friday night.” The Ponies jumped out to a 7-1 lead after the first inning and never looked back. By the end of the fourth inning, the Ponies had built an insurmountable 13-1 advantage, putting the game out of reach for the Indians. Tiffany Ranes had a big game at the plate for the Ponies, amassing three hits and four RBIs, highlighted by a home run. Briese and Stremcha also tallied three hits apiece in the win for the Ponies. “We had a few girls that stepped up at the plate for us,” Bob Evans said. “But Tiffany was our big bat.” The Ponies will have some time to work out some of the kinks before their next game, which will be on April 13 against Libby. “I thought that overall we played fine,” Bob Evans said. “We had some girls that weren’t on varsity last year step up and play well, so I think we have a lot of depth and there is going to be a lot of competition to determine who starts and who doesn’t. The girls needed to play those games, and I think they are fired up about the season.”
