North Stars wrap up the regular season

The 2014 season is winding down for the Havre North Stars American Legion baseball club, but before they begin play in the Northern A District Tournament next Thursday, the North Stars will head to Whitefish for a pair of nondistrict games against the Glacier Twins to close out the regular season.

The North Stars, who are 18-22 overall and 9-15 in district play won’t have anything to gain standings-wise when they square off against the Twins tonight and Saturday in a pair of nine-inning games, but that doesn’t mean the games don’t have meaning.

After splitting a pair of district games on the road against the Medicine Hat Knights Wednesday, the North Stars now have an opportunity to play one of the best Class A teams in the state as they make their final preparations for the district tournament.

“Right now is a good time for us to get healthy and try to start fine-tuning some things for the district tournament,” North Stars head coach Danny Wirtzberger said. “The Glacier Twins are a really good team. They are the top team in the Northwest District and it will be a good chance for us to build some momentum.”

Despite the fact that that the North Stars have completed their district season, there are other Northern A games that will be played over the weekend, so they will not know their final place in the standings or seeding until Sunday.

“At this point, we don’t know exactly where we will be in the standings but the league is so competitive that it doesn’t really matter,” Wirtzberger said. “It really won’t matter because it really is up for grabs.”

At this point in the season, the important thing for the North Stars is to start playing their best baseball because even though the two games against the Twins do not matter in the grand scheme of things, the games that do matter will be just around the corner.

“We just want to be playing our best baseball at this time of year,” he continued. “It would be nice to go down (to Whitefish) and get on a roll with our sticks and fine tune some things with our defense but overall, we are just want to start playing our best baseball heading into the district tournament.”

The North Stars were originally going to play a pair of doubleheaders against the Twins but will now play two nine-inning games instead. The first game will be at 5:30 tonight and the second game will take place Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m.