Ponies finish fourth in Belgrade

After getting rained out in Lewistown earlier in the week, the Havre High softball team was back in action this past weekend in Belgrade to take part in the Belgrade Invitational.

Over the course of Friday and Saturday in Belgrade, the Blue Ponies posted a 2-2 record, winning two games Friday and losing two Saturday to notch a fourth-place finish in the tournament.

Havre opened the tournament Friday and put together two impressive victories with an 8-1 win over Colstrip and a 4-0 shutout win over Great Falls Central. However, the Ponies failed to carry that success over to Saturday as HHS fell 11-2 to Central A rival Belgrade and 6-1 to Polson in the ensuing third-place game.

“I thought that overall we played pretty well,” HHS head coach Bob Evans Sr. said. “We didn’t play as well Saturday as we did on Friday. Of course we were up against some tougher competition, but we didn’t step up as well as we should have. But, we just need to get better and do a better job of being ready to play when we play tough teams like that.”

Friday, the Ponies were led by their pitchers Dani Wagner and Paige Henderson, who together allowed just one run in two games against Polson and Great Falls Central. Both Wagner and Henderson also did well at the plate, and in particular Wagner, who belted a pair of home runs during the two-day tournament.

“Dani did really well overall,” Evans said. “She hit the ball really well both days and hit a couple home runs. Paige also hit the ball well and Scout Boucher also had a pretty good weekend for us. Shania Carlson also did a great job catching. She was all over the place back there.”

Saturday, the Havre offense faltered as it managed to score just three runs in the semifinals and third-place game against Belgrade and Polson respectively. So that was one area that Evans wants to see improvement in going forward.

“I don’t think the pitching was that much better on Saturday than it was on Friday,” Evans said. “We just didn’t hit the ball as well for whatever reason. We are doing a good job of getting some big hits but we need to do a better job of stringing some singles to together. I think we just need to do a better as a team of stepping up and playing better when we’re going up against really good teams like we did Saturday.”

The Ponies will be back in action Thursday when they travel to Glasgow to take on the Scotties. The first pitch is scheduled to be thrown at 4 p.m. Havre will then return home to host Belgrade this Saturday.