A big weekend for Blue Pony fastpitch

Havre Daily News/Nikki Carlson

Havre High catcher Chelsea Nottingham makes contact during a Central A girls softball game last Friday in Havre. On Saturday, the Blue Ponies will host the 2011 Havre Invitational at both the Sixth Avenue Memorial Field and the Hospital Field.

Every game from here on out is an important one to the Havre High School softball team. With just two weekends and a handful of games left on the schedule before the state tournament, the Blue Ponies have to keep improving and climbing the conference ladder.

The Central A Blue Ponies are sitting at 3-5 in the conference and 3-8 overall, but have two shots at improving those numbers this weekend at home. Saturday the Ponies will host the Havre Invite at the Sixth Avenue Memorial Field and Hospital Field, where Lewistown, Conrad, Cut Bank, Glasgow and Shelby will all compete.

At 9:30 a.m. the Ponies will face the conference rival Lewistown Golden Eagles, and at 2 p.m. the Ponies will face the nonconference Cut Bank Wolves. Both games will be played at the sixth avenue field.

"Both games are very important," Havre High head coach Mike Thill said. "But that conference game on Saturday morning (Lewistown), it is just insurmountable that we come out and play the way we are capable of playing."

Just last weekend the Ponies and Eagles faced off and Lewistown, but the Eagles grabbed a big 16-6 win in five innings. The Ponies played well at times, but stepped back into old habits as they let the game slip away with costly errors. HHS trailed 7-2, but key mistakes allowed the Eagles to score eight runs in the fourth inning.

"We made some errors," Thill said. "So we have been working on a lot of things in practice. We have been working a lot with the infield and outfield and working with a few specific people that have had some problems with errors. But we used base runners, brought out our pitchers and had live batters to get as close to real game scenarios as possible."

But the Ponies' bats were decent in the loss, and will play a role again on Saturday. In the first meeting the Ponies scored six runs on nine hits, having one of their better games offensively. Chelsea Nottingham and Mary Lyons also had back-to-back doubles in the fifth. For the Ponies to find success against the talented Eagles at home their bats have to stay active and the defense needs to step up.

Cut Bank will also be a challenge for the Ponies.

The Wolves aren't the best squad the Ponies have faced all season, but the Blue Ponies know they have to play all weekend if they hope to come away with any wins.

"With the position we are in," Thill said, "we have to play every team like we are playing a No. 1. We have to come out and start playing our A game and quit using the excuse that we are young, inexperienced, or that the weather is bad. We just need to put all those things aside and start stepping up. Each girl has to ask what they can do to make this team better."

Overall, the Ponies have to play well. They will find themselves in two games they are capable of winning, but it won't be easy.

Davee McLeod isn't coming off of her best outing of the season against the Eagles, but has the arm to lead the Ponies to success. And with Clarissa Martin possibly still out to injury, and now Roxanna Jensen out with a dislocated knee, things aren't getting easier for HHS.

Batting has grown increasingly better for the Ponies, but that can't let down either. Thill is glad to see six runs on nine hits, but he isn't satisfied. Up and down the lineup, Anrea Nault, McLeod, Michaela Boles, Dylann Williams, Nottingham, Lyons, Alex Herrig and Masha Barnekoff have all been hitting well and doing so again on Saturday could lead to two more Pony wins.

"We can't be satisfied, " Thill said. "We have to keep building. Against pitchers we can handle, we need to strive for 10 and 15 hits and we need to ten-run somebody like they have been doing to us and not let up. Everybody has to make a contribution and we just have to continue to get better."

Havre will host Lewistown at 9:30 a.m. and Cut Bank at 2 p.m. on Saturday at the Sixth Avenue Memorial Field in Havre. There are five games scheduled for the Sixth Avenue Field and four games to be played at the Hospital Field in Saturday's Havre Invite.