Northstars heading north of the border

Believe it or not, the Havre Northstars American Legion Baseball team is nearly halfway through its Northern A District schedule.

However, by the end of this weekend, Havre will have played 14 of the 24 games on its district schedule and with a 6-4 record coming in, the four-game stretch against against Fort Maceod and Medicine Hat will be critical for the stretch run.

Of course, the Northstars will come in with a little momentum after splitting at home against Lewistown, one of the top teams in the district year in and year out. But nothing will be a given after the Northstars split against both the Royals (Fort Macleod) and Knights (Medcine Hat) when the two teams visited Legion Field June 1-2.

Havre will take on Fort Macleod Saturday in the first of consecutive Northern A doubleheaders. Medicine Hat will host the Northstars Sunday. Both double dips will get underway at 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Whether the Northstars are playing at home or on the road, in the United States or in Canada, the ability to score runs has been a key indicator for success this season and against Lewistown Wednesday, that continued. Havre scored 11 runs in an extra-innings win over the Redbirds, but followed that up by getting shutout in a 7-0 loss. For the season, the Northstars are 11-3 in games where they score five runs or more, compared to 3-6 in games that they don't.

A key presence at the plate for Havre has been Quinn Reno, the everyday shortstop. Reno bats in the two spot, right behind Ethan Roberts and together, the two have combined to drive in 30 runs, while scoring a total of 61, with Roberts leading the team with 40 runs scored. Reno is second with 21. Roberts and Reno are also 1-2 on the team in batting average. Roberts is hitting .469, while Reno isn't far behind at .408. He also hit a walk-off, game-winning double against Lewistown Wednesday night.

"That finish was wild," Northstars head coach Patch Wirtzberger said. "But those guys have been so important to this team. The big thing about them is they prepare the correct way. They approach practice every single day with the mindset that they are going to be better that day than they were the day before and that is so important and it shows when you look at what they have been able to accomplish so far this year."

As a team, though, the Northstars are batting under .300 and only two others, Tony Antley (.377) and Hunter Lovenguth (.317) are batting over .300, which has led to some offensive inconsistency. However, a team on-base percentage of .403 has helped the team overcome that with Roberts, Antley, Reno, Caden Jenkins and Eli Cloninger all drawing 10 walks or more.

After using both Antley and Kennedy McKay to start against Lewistown, Wirtzberger will need to get creative in the way he uses his pitching staff, as those guys will be unavailable. He said that Tyrel Kjersem, Trenton Maloughney, Austin Delarosa and Ethan Carlson would likely be the starters this weekend.

"Four conference games on the road is going to be a phyiscal challenge for our guys," Wirtzberger said. "Especially since we can't use Kennedy or Tony until next week. We need other guys like Austin, Tyrel, Trenton and Ethan to step up and give us quality innings. At the plate, we need to keep on doing what we've been doing - make the pitchers work and keep adding runs every inning."

At the very least, a split (2-2) this weekend would keep the Northstars above .500 in the district and in contention for a top seed with 10 regular-season games left before the Northern A tournament. This weekend opens a stretch in which 10 of the last 14 conference games will be on the road.

"These guys play their hearts out every game until the very last out," Wirtzberger said. "They should be proud of what they have been able to accomplish so far this year. We just need to keep taking steps in the right direction and when they finally put it all together, this is going to be a complete baseball team."

The next step in that direction comes Saturday at Fort Macleod. First pitch goes out at 1 p.m. The Northstars also travel to Conrad next Tuesday to battle the Tri-County Caridinals in another Northern A district doubeleheader.