Cardinals sweep North Stars in Conrad

The Havre North Stars American Legion baseball team continues its busy schedule this week, and it started with a pair of games against Tri-County Tuesday night and will continue with a tournament in Whitefish this weekend.

The North Stars, who traveled to Williston, North Dakota, last weekend, took a break from tournament play for a pair of Northern A district games against the Tri-County Cardinals in Conrad. Unfortunately for Havre, the Cardinals steamrolled to a two-game sweep that featured wins of 16-0 and 23-9.

The losses dropped the North Stars to 9-13 on the season overall.

Despite the defeats, Havre will be back in the saddle this weekend as it prepares to take on a slew of teams in Whitefish in nondistrict play. Havre will face Belgrade, West Valley and Glacier, Thursday, Friday and Saturday in a wood-bat-only tourney.

The format will be similar to last weekend, and it will provide manager Dick Fuzesy with a chance to experiment with his lineup more as his team heads toward the home stretch.

However, regardless of the opponent, there are a few players that always seem to provide a steady presence for the North Stars and one of those is catcher Jake Sedahl, who leads the team with a .371 batting average.

Outside of Sedahl, the North Stars have mostly struggled at the plate, other than Jeff Miller, who has been on a tear of late and has seen his average surge to .367. Dylan Carpenter is the only other North Star, who has at least 50 at-bats and is batting better than .300. Currently, Carpenter is batting .321.

Sedahl, Carpenter and Miller are also among the team leaders in RBIs. Sedahl leads the team with 22, while Miller has 13 and Carpenter has 10. Trey Murphy, who has also come on of late, joins them in double digits with 11.

Brenden Garden, who at times has batted leadoff for the North Stars is another player who has shown some consistency at the plate, hitting .291 with seven RBIs. Jerod Boles is also hitting .283 and has scored a team-high 23 runs.

“Brenden has been doing a really good job,” Fuzesy said. “He’s not your conventional leadoff guy in that he doesn’t take as many pitches as your normal leadoff guy will. But I like his aggressiveness and I like how he puts the ball in play.”

When it comes to the pitching side of things, Carpenter is still the team’s top option and comes into the game with a 3-2 record and an era of 3.4. Boles, who has also been a reliable starter this season, actually leads the team in ERA with a 1.65 average and is 2-0 on the season. He is coming off a complete-game victory in his last start.

Brenden Danielson, Ethan Roberts, Kennedy McKay, Kaiden Anez, Gavin Mosbrucker and Ethan Roberts have all seen time on the mound this season at one time or another for Havre and could again this weekend in Whitefish.

Havre will open the tournament Thursday against Belgrade. The North Stars will then play West Valley Friday, followed by a game against Glacier Saturday. All those games will be part of group play. Their opponent Sunday will be determined by how they finish in their group.