By Kim Staudinger
The Havre Comets surrendered 17 runs and 23 hits in two games, losing both games of a doubleheader to the Helena Senior Babe Ruth All-Star team Sunday afternoon at Legion Field.
The Comets were held to only 11 hits and five runs between the two games and left 19 men on base in losses of 12-2 and 5-3.
"We need to make things happen," Comets coach Bob Evans said.
The Comets led the first game 1-0 heading into the third inning before giving up six runs on five hits and four errors making the score 6-1 Helena.
The Comets got two quick outs in the top of the fourth before loading the bases on a hit batter, a walk and an error only to leave the bases loaded as Garrett Drake grounded out at first to end the inning.
Helena came back in the top of the fifth and scored four runs on three hits and one error and added two more runs in the seventh putting the game out of reach for the Comets.
"We were terrible," Evans said. "We made way too many errors, and we were not consistent. We need to be more consistent."
"We just hit the ball at people," Comets shortstop Ian Spencer said. "He (Helena's Browne) wasn't a hard pitcher."
After retiring Helena in order in the top half of the first inning to begin the second game, the Havre bats woke up.
Havre's Steve Heberly led off the inning with a single and would later score on a fielder's choice by Spencer. Mark Benjamin and Ben Mader followed with back-to-back singles, driving in Spencer to give the Comets a 2-0 lead.
Benjamin scored three batters later on an error by Helena shortstop Kyle Hutchinson, loading the bases again for Havre. But right fielder Brian Childree grounded out to first one batter later to end the inning.
The score would remain 3-0 until the third when Helena would bring nine men to the plate to score five runs on four hits to take a 5-3 lead that would hold for the rest of the game.
"We need to learn to be smarter at the plate," Evans said. "We should be able to score more runs than that. We have to learn to win no matter who we play."
