Lightning stop Northstars

Every winning streak has to come to an end, whether it be at home or on the road.

The Havre Northstars American Legion baseball club met with that reality, as after sweeping the Great Falls Lightning and the Glendive Blue Devils recently, the Northstars met with another tough doubleheader away from Legion Field.

On the road in Great Falls against the Lightning, Havre went into a battle Monday afternoon, which ended with the Northstars being swept, with game one seeing Great Falls win 2-1 and game two saw, Havre fall 18-8. The Northstars overall score is now 16-23, a blow to the hot streak that was active.

Havre head coach Patch Wirtzberger was proud that his team gave it their all on the road after a tough trip back home from Glendive Sunday night.

"It's a tough turn-around," Wirtzberger said. "We didn't get home till late last night, then we had to get up pretty early to get to Great Falls for a noon start. With all that considered, I thought the kids played really hard and hit the ball pretty well actually. We just couldn't get the ball to bounce our way and I think we ran out of steam there towards the end."

Game one was a close bout to start off the doubleheader, with both teams starting off with struggles offensively. After the first two innings were stale, the Lightning put up the first run of the game in the bottom of the third inning. With two more innings that did not see a score, the Northstars were looking for a play that would keep them in the game.

And that clutch play came from Ethan Carlson, who tied up the game at one score each at the top of the sixth inning by singling on an 0-1 count. But, in the bottom of the eighth inning, Ryan Hartum singled on the first pitch to score one run, putting Havre on the sour end of the walk-off, ending game one on a tough note as a whole.

Great Falls gave Havre a challenge and Wirtzberger knew what struck his team hard the most Monday afternoon.

"Our biggest challenge was just trying to battle through fatigue and really just trying to get balls to land in good spots," Wirtzberger said. "We hit the ball really good, but we just couldn't find a good hole for it."

Havre saw further struggles in game two of the doubleheader, where the Lightning brought the thunder early on, breaking out into a big lead. Great Falls' offensive attack pushed throughout the bout. As much as the Northstars tried to fight back, the Lightning made sure that Havre did not run away with the game. But at the end of the day, the Northstars did put up eight runs and fought till the very end, even if things did not go as planned in ther second game.

The Northstars will get a day to rest up before heading to their next challenge, which will be up against the Great Falls AA Chargers at 5 p.m. Wednesday in Great Falls, bringing another difficult obstacle in Havre's way as the regular season closing to its end quicker by the day.

The Chargers will be bringing their all against the Northstars Wednesday evening and Wirtzberger expects another game that goes down to the wire.

"The Chargers are a great team," Wirtzberger said. "We had a good battle with them when they came up to Havre. I would expect nothing less. They're going to field the ball really well and hit the ball, so we're just going to have to match it by resting tomorrow and coming back to play hard again."