North Stars look to hit their stride

The last four games have been a little rough on the Havre North Stars American Legion baseball club. Four straight losses, including two wipeouts north of the border against the same opponent will do that to a team.

But following Sunday’s sweep at the hands of the Lethbridge Minors at Legion Field, the North Stars have six chances to get back on track this week. Havre is on the road to face the Great Falls Electrics this afternoon, then the North Stars return home for back-to-back doubleheaders. Havre will face the Vauxhall Spurs Wednesday afternoon and the Fort MacLeod Royals Thursday night.

And while getting back on track is important, Havre head coach Dan Wirtzberger also sees this week’s games as a chance to just improve. With four straight losses to Lethbridge, Havre fell to 7-7 in the Northern District and is likely out of the race for the No. 1 seed at the district tournament. So Wirtzberger said, that pressure is now off the young North Stars.

“I don’t think we can catch up as far as the No. 1 seed at the district tournament goes,” Wirtzberger said. “So after that, it doesn’t really matter where we end up in the conference standings. From what I have seen, everybody in our league is pretty even right now. And the matchups at districts should be pretty even too.

“So we’ll use these next games as an opportunity to focus on ourselves,” he continued. “We have played some really good baseball at times, but we know we can improve. And that’s what we want to do this week, improve.”

The North Stars (7-7, 15-15) certainly have the talent to continue to make noise in the district standings over the next two weeks, which are the final two weeks of the regular season. But playing six tough games this week, things won’t be easy. Havre split with Great Falls back in May in Havre, but the Electrics will likely have a different looking team this time around. The North Stars will also be seeing Vauxhall for the first time Wednesday, and will be facing a Fort MacLeod squad that will certainly be looking for revenge after dropping two home games to the North Stars early last week in Canada.

Currently, the Medicine Hat Knights lead the district standings, while second place is still up for grabs between Great Falls, Lethbridge, Vauxhall and Havre. Fort MacLeod and Tri-County are a little farther behind in the regular season race.

Meanwhile, Havre comes into this week’s games hitting the ball fine, but not scoring enough runs. The North Stars managed just five runs in four games against Lethbridge in the last week, but Havre has shown the ability to bat the ball around. The North Stars are hitting 307 as a team, and have compiled 218 hits this season. However, Havre is only averaging just four runs per seven innings. So if the North Stars want to make a summer run and reach the Class A state tournament, they’ll need to push more runners across the plate in the next three weeks.

Individually, infielder Travis Roth is hitting a red-hot 446 with a team-high 21 runs batted in. Veteran first baseman David Denny is batting .388 with 15 RBIs, while rookie catcher Jake Sedahl is hitting .368 and has hit safely in six of his last eight games, while rookie shortstop/pitcher Jeff Miller is hitting .316 with 11 driven in. Veteran right fielder Spencer Ross leads the North Stars with a .495 on-base percentage, while Denny leads the squad with 18 doubles.

So, with the kind of hitting the North Stars are capable of, if they get hot at the right time, they can certainly do some damage at the plate, and they are hoping that starts with today’s games in Great Falls. Havre has a tough stretch to finish the regular season with 10 district games. After the six the North Stars play this week, they’ll finish conference play July 15 at Vauxhall and July 16 at Medicine Hat.

Today’s games in Great Falls start at 1 p.m. at Don Olson Field. Havre hosts the Vauxhall Spurs starting at 3 p.m. Wednesday and the final home doubleheader of the regular season, against the Fort MacLeod Royals, starts at 5 p.m. Thursday at Legion Field.