Babe Ruth tournament off and running

The 2010 Havre Youth Baseball Association Babe Ruth tournament got underway with two dominating performances.

Thursday at Legion field in Havre, both the Optimist and Wells Fargo youth baseball programs dominated the competition. In game one, Wells Fargo defeated Chinook 12-2 in four innings of play. And in game two, Optimist defeated Rocky Boy 24-4 in just three innings of play.

On two hits and a Wells Fargo error, Chinook took a quick 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning. But in the bottom half of the opening inning, Wells Fargo quickly turned the tables.

Wells Fargo took a 7-2 lead on two hits, two Chinook errors and three wild pitches. The Wells Fargo offense was sparked by Chris Vukasin who knotted the game at 2-2 with an in the park homerun.

Three more runs came Wells Fargo's way in the bottom of the second.

Migual Ley got the offense going with a double, while two runs scored on two more wild pitches and JJ Hovet earned an RBI on a base hit.

Holding a 10-2 lead, Wells Fargo tacked on their final two runs in the bottom of the fourth.

Ley and Ramsey Drew both earned walks. Thurman Holdsclaw then came to the plate and drove the ball into right field that deflected of the mitt of a Chinook fielder, scoring both Wells Fargo base runners and giving Wells Fargo the 12-2 first round win.

In the second game of the evening, Optimist put on an even more dominating performance.

In the bottom of the first inning Optimist put together eight hits to take a 10-0 lead. And though Rocky Boy scored two runs in the second, Optimist came right back and tacked on 14 runs in the bottom half of the second.

The Optimist offense had 20 hits in their two innings of work, four of which were triples by Kirby Sands, Kyle Gooch, Timmy Welch and Dane Linquist.

Rocky Boy would add two more runs in the top of the third inning, but their offense was highlighted by Cody Lamere who had an RBI triple in the second, as well as came around to score a run later in the inning.

With the win Wells Fargo advanced to play Northern Montana Hospital today at 5:30 p.m. And with both Chinook and Rocky Boy losing, they will face each other today at 7:30

p. m. in loser out action.

Optimist will play next on Saturday at 5:30, as they await the winner of the Wells Fargo and Northern Montana Hospital matchup. Also on Saturday at 7:30 p.m., the loser of the Wells Fargo and Northern Montana game will face the winner of the Rocky Boy and Chinook game.

The 2010 HYBA Babe Ruth tournament will run through Sunday night at Legion Field. The championship tilt is slated for 7:30 p.m. Sunday night, while a challenge game would be played on Monday night at Legion Field, if necessary.