Chris Peterson Havre Daily News cpeterson@havredailynews.com
A three-day road trip to Florence for the Bitterroot Invitational turned out to be a success for the Havre Northstars American Legion baseball team. The Northstars recovered from an opening-game, 7-6 loss to the Dillon Cubs on Friday, to tie for third place after knocking off Bozeman 6-5 on Saturday and Mission Valley 7-2 on Sunday. The Northstars were scheduled to play in the consolation game on Sunday afternoon, but the game was cancelled due to poor weather. “Overall, I am pretty happy with the way we played over the weekend,” Northstars head coach Steve Fanning said. “We played a very good Dillon team that has only lost two games and we probably should have beat them. We just made some physical mistakes that you can’t make against good teams.” Trailing 3-0 to Dillon on Friday night, the Northstars finally got on the scoreboard in the top of the third inning when Scott Vigliotti opened the inning with a single and later scored on an RBI-single by Sean Peterson. Two batters later Ryan Callahan ripped an RBIdouble, scoring Austin Small and trimming the deficit to 3-2. However, Dillon responded with a four-run fifth inning to push its lead to 7-2. The score remained 7-2 in the top of the seventh inning when the Northstars made one last rally in an attempt to steal the game. Small and Vigliotti scored on sacrifices earlier in the inning making the score 7-4. Peterson scored on a throwing error, which was followed by an RBI-double by Jeremiah Moog with two outs, scoring Bryan Heath and cutting the Dillon lead to 7-6. With two outs in the inning, Havre had runners on second and third, but was unable to capitalize as Logan Reichelt struck out to end the game. Seth Jensen was hit with the loss for the Northstars after allowing seven runs on six hits in five innings, while striking out one and walking four. Callahan and Vigliotti each went 2- for-3 at the plate in the loss to lead the Havre offense. On Saturday the Northstars rebounded from their loss to Dillon with a 6-5 triumph over the Bozeman Spikes. Trailing 4-2 in the bottom of the third inning, the Northstars took a 5-4 lead after an RBI-double by Moog, as well as RBI singles by Reichelt and Scott Ladenburg. Bozeman tied the game at 5-5 with a home run in the top of the fifth off of Small. However, the tie didn’t last long as Reichelt reached on a leadoff walk in the bottom half of the inning and went on to score the winning run on a wild pitch. Small got the win for the Northstars despite surrendering five runs on seven hits in six innings of work. He also notched five strikeouts and walked four in the win. Reichelt had a solid game at the plate for Havre with a hit, two runs scored and two RBIs. Callahan went 2- for-2 in the win with two runs and an RBI. The Northstars closed out the weekend with an easy 7-2 victory over Mission Valley. Peterson tossed a gem as the Northstars starting pitcher, earning a complete-game victory after holding Mission Valley to just two runs on five hits in seven innings. He also struck out six and walked just one. “I thought all of our pitchers, Sean, Austin and Seth threw pretty well this weekend,” Fanning said. “I also thought that Scott Ladenburg stepped up in relief and gave us some quality innings, which was good to see. “Callahan, Heath and Moog all hit the ball well,” he added. “We really didn’t have just one or two people stand out for us, it was a real team effort. We got production from top to bottom in our order, which is something some other teams we play don’t usually get.” The Northstars jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead on Mission Valley in the top of the second inning. Heath led off the inning with a double, scoring two batters later on a single by Reichelt. Later on in the inning Reichelt and Vigliotti scored on a two-run single by Ladenburg, giving the Northstars a three-run lead and more than enough support for Peterson. Anthony Wirtzberger was 2-for-4 with two RBIs in the win. Tanner Donovan also contributed at the plate with two hits and an RBI for the Northstars. The Northstars (17-6) will be back in action on Wednesday at Legion Field against the Billings Blue Jays. The game will follow the Havre Comets and the Blue Jays, which will start at 7 pm. The Comets played four times in Canada this past weekend, but results were not made available to the Havre Daily News. The Comets face Lewistown today at 2 at Legion Field. The game is a makeup game from a rain-out last week.
