Havre Invite a tough one for Blue Pony softball team

The Havre High softball team had high hopes for its final home games of the season, but unfortunately, a couple of hot pitchers put a damper on the Blue Ponies' day.

The Ponies, who played Lewistown Saturday morning at the Sixth Avenue Memorial Field, before taking on Conrad later in the day as part of the Havre Invitational, lost both games by the scores of 6-2 and 3-0, repsectively. The loss to Lewistown dropped Havre to 4-4 in the Central A conference and 4-6 overall. HHS will finish third in the Central A divisional standings.

"We had some chances, we just couldn't come up with enough hits when we needed them," HHS head coach Whitney McNally said. "We just need to find a way to be more consistent with our hitting."

At the end of the day, the Ponies did muster six hits. However, Lewistown managed nine. The Eagles also did a better job of turning their hits into runs, as they scored three runs in the top of the first, before adding one in the fifth and two more in the sixth.

Trailing 6-0 in the bottom of the seventh, the Ponies finally generated some offense as a hit by Jacey Mcdonald with two outs got a run going. Jenae Boles later scored on an RBI double by Payton Howard, but Lewistown pitcher Carley Carpenter got the final out and HHS was limited to just two runs.

Carpenter was the winning pitcher for the Eagles. Dani Wagner got the loss for Havre after allowing six runs and nine hits in seven innings pitched. Mcdonald led Havre at the plate with two hits, while Nicole Parsons, Scout Boucher, Alex Barkus, Claire Worm and Howard all added one.

After falling to Lewistown in conference play, Havre took on Conrad in non-conference action and faced one of the top hurlers in the state in Tristin Achenbach. And for seven innings, Achenbach lived up to the hype, as she allowed just two hits and struck out 19 batters in the shutout victory.

The rest of the Cowgirls helped Achenbach and gave her some run support early with a run in the top of the first inning, followed by runs in the top of the fourth and the top of the seventh. Havre did manage to get on base as Barkus and McDonald each managed hits, but the Ponies never had a serious scoring chance.

Despite the loss, Barkus pitched a solid game for Havre, allowing just three runs and six hits in seven innings.

"Alex did a good job of pitching for us," McNally said. "We just made some mistakes defensively and we just couldn't come up with any hits. I know that (Achenbach) is a great pitcher, but we have to find a way to get some more hits, even off a pitcher like that."

Havre will be back in action this weekend at the Butte Central Invitational. After that, they will head to the Central A Divisional tournament in Belgrade, which will take place on May 20-21.

"We have one more week of games," McNally said. "And then it's on to divisionals, so we are going to try and get the girls as much game time as we can get. We will try to get some of subs a chance to play more and see what they can do, but mostly we just want to see everyone get better."

Lewistown 6, Havre 2

Lewistown 300 012 0 – 6 9 3

Havre 000 000 2 – 2 4 0

WP – Carpenter. LP – Wagner.

Lewistown – N. Weichel 1-4; M. Comes 1-4; K. Southworth 3-3; D.Gapay 1-4; K. Irvin 1-4; H. Hayes 1-3; V. Kolstad 1-3; A. Halter 0-1; A. Gremaux 0-2; E. Craven 0-1.

Havre – M. Tommerup 0-4; N. Parsons 0-2; S. Boucher 1-3; C. Rosales 0-1; D. Wagner 0-1; A. Barkus 0-1; J. Hassa 0-2; M. Corcoran 1-3; M. Matosich 0-3; C. Worm 1-3; A. Corcoran 1-3.

2B – Southworth, Hayes, A. Corcoran.

RBI – Comes, Gapay, Irvin 2, Gremaux, A. Corcoran.

Conrad 3, Havre 0

Conrad 100 100 1 – 3 6 1

Havre 000 000 0 – 0 2 3

WP – Achenbach. LP – Barkus.

Conrad – Durocher 2-3; Harris 0-4; Achenbach 2-3; Russell 0-2; Erickson 0-3; Moritz 0-2; Bender 1-3; Redd 1-3; Van Dyke 0-3.

Havre – Tommerup 0-2; Parsons 0-3; Boucher 0-3; Wagner 0-3; Barkus 1-3; MacDonald 1-3; Huston 0-2; Worm 0-2; Howard 0-2; Hassa 0-0.

HR – Durocher. RBI – Durocher 2.