Havre North Stars have a bright future

The 2015 season was a memorable one for the Havre North Stars American Legion baseball team. But, it will always be a season of what ifs after Havre failed to qualify for the Montana State A baseball tournament despite earning the top seed for the Northern A district tournament.

Yet, just because the North Stars didn't make it to state, doesn't mean their season was a failure. In fact, far from it. The 2015 North Stars could ultimately go down as the team that started the next great run of baseball in Havre. Their legacy will not be defined just by what happens this season, but also by what happens next season and beyond.

That may not be what players like Ryne Antley, Tyrell Pierce and Gavin Gunderson, who have played their last game with the North Stars, want to hear, but it should provide them with some consolation considering the disappointing way their careers ended.

The fact of the matter is that, even though the season did not end the way the team or first-year manager Dick Fuzeszy wanted it to, the North Stars have a good group of talented players returning next season and after posting a winning regular season record and finishing in a tie for first atop the district standings for the first time in nearly a decade, there is a definite increase in the excitement and enthusiasm surrounding North Stars baseball.

Not long ago, the North Stars were not only one of the pre-eminent teams in Montana A Legion baseball, they also had a ton of kids coming out to play. Back then there were two teams, the North Stars and the Comets. Baseball was a big deal in Havre then, and it may not be long before it's a big deal again.

With players like catcher Jake Sedahl, pitcher Dylan Carpenter, shortstop Travis Roth, first baseman/pitcher Jeff Miller and second baseman/pitcher Jerod Boles all set to return, as well as Brenden Danielson, Trey Murphy, TJ Lovenguth, Tanner Hentschel and others back, it's not far fetched to believe Havre will contend for a state tournament berth in 2016.

Rebuilding a program doesn't happen overnight, it takes time and there are going to be set backs. But, in his first season on the job, Fuzesy helped Havre baseball at the American Legion level take a big step forward.

Fuzesy's team started slow but finished the season strong winning six of their last eight regular season games, as players like Sedahl, Roth, Carpenter, Boles and Miller came into their own. Now the North Stars have a solid core to build upon for next year and, if Fuzesy can keep developing young talent like he has already proven he can, Havre will be in good shape for the foreseeable future.

The truth is, in sports, a lot of times it takes losing to learn how to win. And maybe at the end of the day, the North Stars just hadn't been on the big stage enough to know how to handle it. But now, they do and next season, when the district tournament rolls around, they will be much better prepared to deal with success and play well in the games championship teams simply have to win.

Of course every team wants to end its season with a championship and the North Stars were no different. But just like every other team in the state that had its season end with a loss, the North Stars need to take a step back and look at what they did achieve, instead of dwelling on what they didn't.

Because in sports, as in life, you can never go backward, only forward. And as long as the North Stars learn from the way their season ended, they will be in a much better position to write a more storybook finish come next August.