North Stars finally head to the diamond

The Havre North Stars American Legion baseball team may have already opened their season three weeks ago. But due to scheduling conflicts and a postponed doubleheader, the North Stars will basically be starting new this weekend with a pair of doubleheaders against Great Falls and Medicine Hat.

The North Stars, who opened their 2015 season back on May 10 by splitting a doubleheader with the Glasgow Reds, will be in action for the first time in 20 days Saturday when they head to Great Falls to take on the Electrics in a Northern A district doubleheader. Then, on Sunday, Havre will hit the road again for another district doubleheader in Medicine Hat.

“These are important games for us, any time we play conference games, we want to win,” North Stars head coach Dick Fuzesy said. “But, we also haven’t played in a while, so we have been focusing on getting back to the basics. Hopefully, they have retained what they have learned so far and they can keep building on that.”

One thing that Fuzesy and his staff know they can build on is pitching. In the first two games of the season, the North Stars held Glasgow to just three total runs and got a particularly impressive performance from their ace Tyrell Pierce, who held the Reds to just one run on four hits in seven innings.

Yet, in addition to Pierce, the North Stars also boast a solid pitching staff that includes Dylan Carpenter, Brenden Danielson, Jeff Miller, Jerod Boles and Ryne Antley. Danielson earned the win against Glasgow, while Carpenter pitched three solid innings in relief. And even though Pierce may be the ace, Carpenter will get the nod in the opening game against Great Falls.

“We are going to go with Carpenter in that first game against Great Falls,” Fuzesy said. “And then we are going to see how things go. If we can win the first game and have the chance to get a sweep, we want to do that, but we also have conference games the next day, too, so if we can handle the Electrics without Tyrell, we will go with somebody else maybe and save him for Medicine Hat.”

Fuzesy may not know the exact order of how he will use his pitchers over the course of the four games, but he was relatively sure that Carpenter, Pierce and Miller would all start games for Havre, with Boles, Antley or Danielson likely getting the nod as the fourth starter.

“Jeff is a strong pitcher, he just hasn’t pitched much because he was playing tennis,” Fuzesy said. “But, he will get a start and then maybe even Boles, who has done really well in practice this week.”

While the North Stars will have nearly their entire roster available this weekend, one player who will be absent is regular third baseman Gavin Gunderson, who is set to play in the Bob Cleverley 8-Man football All-Star game this Saturday in Butte.

However, the rest of the regular North Star starters including Miller at short stop, Travis Roth, who will likely play third in place of Gunderson, Antley in center field, Carpenter in left field, Jake Sedhal at catcher, Boles at second and T.J. Lovenguth in right field, will all be available. Trey Murphy and Trey Hanson should also see time in the field or as the designated hitter. Cole Keller, Kyle Gooch, Nic Tanner and Tanner Hentschel will also provide valuable depth for Havre.

In terms of their opponents, Fuzesy said it’s hard to know what to expect out of Great Falls and Medicine Hat, who are both feeder teams from larger programs in the AA league.

“Both teams are usually well coached and fundamentally sound,” Fuzesy said. “Sometimes early in the year, you don’t know what you are going to get when you play these teams that are feeder teams for their AA squads. They are usually pretty young but might still have some good players that they haven’t moved up.”

While winning is always important, if the North Stars want to post a good finish in the district standings and earn a high seed entering the district tournament at the end of the year, they know they need to start taking care of business right away against district competition.

“It’s always important to get off to a good start,” Fuzesy said. “We want to have a good seed at districts at the end of the year and if we can get some wins this weekend that would put us ahead of the game a little bit. You definitely don’t want to get behind the 8-ball and have to dig yourself out a hole early.”

The North Stars will play two games against the Electrics in Great Falls Saturday before moving on to take on Medicine Hat for a doubleheader Sunday. Havre then returns to Legion Field to host the Havre Jamboree next weekend.en returns to Legion Field to host the Havre Jamboree next weekend.