Pony softball team still waiting for their first games of 2018

After a few weeks of practice and after already having their season-opening tournament canceled due to weather, the Havre High softball team will try its hand at competing again this Saturday in Lewistown.

Yet, the Central A conference matchup, which is supposed to take place Saturday in Lewistown will only happen if the weather cooperates and right now that seems to be a big if. However, if the game is played, the Ponies and Eagles will get things started around 4 p.m., when the first pitch is scheduled to go out.

If the game does end up being played it will be important for a couple of reasons. For one, it would be the first game action the Ponies have seen all season. But more importantly, the games will count in the Central A standings and with just six conference games, every single one is going to be important. More than that, though, the Ponies just need to get on the field and get into a competitive environment according to head coach Tony Vigliotti.

"We are to the point now that we just need to get out and play a game," Vigliotti said. "We need to figure where we're at and go from there."

So far the Ponies have played zero games and also have yet to have a full practice at the Sixth Avenue Memorial Field, where they normally practice daily and play all of their home games. The team was able to get in a couple of workouts outside, but that has been the extent of their ability to work outside.

"Been outside a total of two times," Vigliotti said. "We are just doing fundamentals and repetitions and some of that kind of stuff. We have been able to do some situational stuff and (Wednesday) we did some live hitting. We put our pitchers and batters in the cage and we let our pitchers pitch and our hitters hit."

One resource the Havre softball team does have outside of the indoor batting cages at the Havre High gymnasium, it's also the gym itself, which provides enough room for the Ponies to simulate bases and work on infielding fundamentals.

"We have been setting up bases in the gym," Vigliotti said. "We have enough room to do that. So we can do some infield stuff. (Tuesday) we went corner to corner in the gym and worked some fly balls and worked on hitting the cut-off man. We can't do actual live fly balls, at least what I would call fly balls, because we can only hit them as high as the gym ceiling but we are at least working on some things and getting done what we need to get done. But they are ready to play and we are ready to see them play."

Lewistown, like Havre made the state tournament in 2017 and was the second-seeded team from the Central A. The Eagles knocked off Havre three times last season, so a win for Havre over their rival would be significant.

However, the weather appears to be an issue. There is supposed to be some snow that hits Lewistown before the games are scheduled to take place Saturday and if there is a lot of snowfall, it could mean another cancellation. Vigliotti said a decision was expected to be made later today.

Yet, the head coach said there was hope for the Ponies to play Monday in a non-conference matchup against Glasgow. That's a road game scheduled for 5 p.m. At any rate, Havre should make its debut at the Lewistown Invitational April 13-14.

"It's a crazy thing, no one I have talked to can remember anything like this," Vigliotti said. "Usually, you would always have a few days where you might get stuck inside because of some snow or something, but not for three weeks."