North Stars making final push on the road

The Havre North Stars American Legion baseball team was supposed to play their final home games of the season Thursday at Legion Field. However, their doubleheader with Scobey was cancelled. Yet, the show must go on and the team will have its hands full with three doubleheaders in the next four days.

The busy stretch, which is made up entirely of district games against Northern A District opponents, will feature games against Medicine Hat, Vauxhall and then Lewistown. The North Stars will get their road trip underway today, when they take on Medicine Hat. The first pitch will go out at 1.

These six games coming up will close out district play for the North Stars and it will be their final chance to improve their seeding for the district tournament. Right now, Havre sits in last place in the Northern A with a 5-17 record. The team is 13-27 overall. Great Falls is tied with them in the win column at 5-15 and in sixth place is Fort MacLeod at 8-14.

However, moving up in the standings may prove difficult with doubleheaders against three of the top four teams to close the season. Lewistown leads the district at 18-6 and the North Stars will play them Sunday on the road in a doubleheader starting at 1 p.m. That will be a makeup of last Sunday's doubleheader that was cancelled due to rain.

Medicine Hat, which Havre plays today, sits fourth at 11-11 and Vauxhall, which the North Stars will see Friday starting at 5 p.m., is 15-5 and trails only Lewistown. The doubleheader with Vauxhall is another makeup.

"Right now we are just hoping that we are going to put everything together," North Stars head coach Dick Fuzesy said. "It hasn't been going good, but eventually, everything that we have been doing is going to pay off."

With six straight games on the road, against the top three teams in the district, any wins the North Stars can get will be gravy. Yet, unless they are able to get on a hot streak, anything higher than seventh place in the final standings is going to be a stretch.

"We are just trying to win as many games as we can and try to get the best seed possible," Fuzesy said. "We would really like to get a chance to play Lethbridge in the tournament, just because we lost a lot of close games against them and we seem to match up pretty well with them."

If the North Stars are going to have a chance to jump Great Falls or even Fort MacLeod, an offense that has struggled to score runs for much of the season, the team will need to start producing. That will mean more strong hitting from Jeff Miller, who leads the team with a .400 batting average.

Miller also has 32 RBIs, which is second on the team, as well as 16 extra-base hits, including eight doubles and a team-high eight tripes. Another key producer at the plate for Havre has been Jake Sedahl, who is second the team with a .350 average. He also leads the North Stars in RBIs (36), doubles (11) and is tied for the team lead in runs scored with 34.

Dylan Carpenter (15 RBIs, 25 runs), Brenden Danielson (11 RBIs, 25 runs), Brenden Garden (15 RBIs, 22 runs) and Kennedy McKay (14 RBIs, 11 runs) are the other players that have reached double figures in both RBIs and runs scored.

On the mound, Fuzesy has a number of different options and with the amount of innings to be pitched in three days, he will likely need to use all of them. Carpenter and Boles are the top tandem as Carpenter is 4-5 with a 3.79 ERA, while Boles is 6-3 with a team-best ERA of 2.6. McKay has also quietly pitched 40 innings this season, which ranks third on the team. He's 1-3 and has an ERA of 5.4.

Danielson joins Boles and Carpenter as the only other multi-game winner on the pitching staff. Hes 2-3 with a 9.31 ERA and has pitched 29 innings. Miller has also pitched 27 innings and has an ERA of 6.66. Gavin Mosbrucker has also seen time on the bump and is credited with eight appearances and three starts.

Tony Antley has also been called upon in five different occasions to pitch, while Ethan Roberts has also seen the mound twice. Roberts is also a regular starter in the outfield at left or center.

Havre and Medicine Hat will play two games today in Canada. The North Stars will then travel to Vauxhall for a double-dip Friday beginning at 5 p.m. Havre will close out its district schedule with two against Lewistown in a Sunday matinee that starts at 1 p.m. to finish the regular season.