North Stars set to make home debut tonight

The season is still just getting underway for the Havre North Stars American Legion baseball team, and after doing some positive things in last week’s season-opening doubleheader, the North Stars will get four more opportunities to continue building this week.

Havre is 0-2 to start but will play a conference doubleheader tonight at Legion Field in Havre against the Great Falls Electrics. Tonight marks the home debut for the North Stars, who will remain at home Sunday afternoon for a doubleheader against the nonconference Glasgow Reds. Tonight’s doubleheader begins at 5, while Sunday’s doubleheader will begin at 1 p.m.

In the 0-2 start last week, the North Stars felt they played two solid games. And while tonight’s games mean a lot in the long run, they are still focused on themselves, and getting better.

“It’s early in the season and we aren’t preparing any differently for these two teams,” North Stars head coach Danny Wirtzberger said. “Great Falls is a conference team, but we still have to focus on what we do best right now. And we still have to limit our pitches with our pitchers to about 100, and that handcuffed us a bit on Sunday. But even with the Electrics, we would love to get a win, but we are really hoping to play well. It is the same thing against Glasgow, though the wins don’t mean as much against them.”

Defensively the North Stars played very well in the season opener, and would like that to continue over the next four games at home. They did have some errors as thye shook off the rust, but nothing coach Wirtzberger couldn’t live with. The pitching was also strong, and Wirtzberger said if he wasn’t putting his guys on a pitch count, he felt they could have come away with at least one of those wins. Tyrell Pierce should get at least one of the starts at home, but Chris Vukasin, Gavin Gunderson, Dylan Carpenter, and Dan Miller should also be ready for time on the mound if called upon. Havre needs to continue to play well in the field, as well as from the mound while waiting for the bats to come around. Coach Wirtzberger also knows the hits will come, stating that is still early and his squad just needs to see more live pitching.

And they will see plenty of good talent against the Electrics.

Great Falls will bring a talented Electric lineup, but will also have quite a few players that will end up on the Chargers team as well. The Electrics are typically very tough on their own, but with some Chargers on the early roster, they will be even tougher.

“They don’t have to do their roster this early,” Wirtzberger said. “So they will bring a lot of kids up here, and a lot kids that will be playing on the Chargers. But that is good, we get to see them at their best early. We just need to get playing time right now. We are ahead of a lot of the Canadian teams that we play, but we are also behind a lot of the American teams we play.”

Travis Roth, Gunderson, Ryne Antley, David Denny, Vukasin, Pierce, Chance Pitkanen, Jeff Miller, Dylan Carpenter, Jake Sedahl, Mike Loftus, Dan Miller and Spencer Ross need to get the bats going, and going early, against Great Falls, as well as Glasgow.

But it won’t be easy going from one series to the next. The Electrics are tough, but the Reds are already an early favorite as one of the top teams in the state. While it is still early, the North Stars need to limit their errors Sunday.

“I expect some errors in just our fifth and sixth games of the season,” Wirtzberger said. “Hopefully we can limit our mental mistakes and hope for the best with our physical mistakes.”

Tonight's doubleheader between the North Stars and Great Falls Electrics begins at 5 p.m. Sundays doubleheader against Glasgow begins at 1 p.m. Both series’ will be played at Legion Field in Havre.