Havre stars reach Babe Ruth semifinals

The Havre Babe Ruth 13-year-old all-star team had a dramatic comeback on Saturday night, but things didn't end as well on Sunday.

Wednesday through Sunday the 2010 Babe Ruth 13-year-old state tournament took place at Legion Field in Havre and the Havre team reached the semifinals before bowing out to Kalispell on Sunday morning.

Havre had no games on Wednesday, but got the weekend started off right with a dominating 12-5 win over Northern Valley on Thursday.

Tyrell Pierce was the winning pitcher for the Havre All Stars, pitching three scoreless innings with only one hit. Ryne Antley came on in relief and pitched four innings for Havre, allowing five runs on five hits, and retiring two batters by way of strikeout.

Pierce led the offense going 3-of-5 with three RBIs. Gavin Gunderson was 2-of- 5 and also had three RBIs, while Jake Williams was 3-of-5 with two RBIs and Antley was 2-of-5 with two RBIs. Travis Roth was also 3-of-5.

"That gave us a lot of confidence," Havre head coach Kevin Sukut said.

"It's the first time we have seen these teams and we didn't know who could do what, but the kids got it in their head that we could compete." Friday night Havre was back in action, but fell to Lewistown 12-11.

Havre trailed 12-9 after four complete innings, but couldn't quite muster up a big enough comeback.

Saturday had two games in store for the Havre All-Stars.

First facing Mission, Havre earned a 16-14 win in a game that took seven innings of relentless baseball.

Williams was 3-of-5 with a triple and a double and Gunderson was 2-of- 5 with a double. Antley, Alec Drew, Pierce and Kaden Sukut also had one hit each.

Havre never quit, and battled for the win over Mission. And with the win, Havre showed things were really coming together.

Game two on Saturday was another tough one for Havre.

In bracket play Havre found themselves face to face with Lewistown once again. Both teams finished pool play 2-1, but Lewistown held a higher seed because of a tiebreaker determined by run differential.

And just as it was before, the matchup was a tight one once again, but this time around, Havre managed an 8-6 come-from-behind win. "Those guys (Lewistown) are good baseball players," Sukut said. "They have some of the tournaments best pitchers, so for us to find ways to score late when we needed was huge." Roth was 3-of-5 with two RBIs and Pierce was 2-of-3 with one RBI. Kato and Sukut also had a hit for Havre, while Sukut had two RBIs.

Antley got the win from the mound for Havre, pitching one inning and giving up two hits. Roth started the game, pitching 3.2 innings with two strikeouts.

The win pushed Havre into the semifinals, but the bats were silenced against a tough Kalispell team.