Havre Northstars host Great Falls Chargers Sunday

After an opening weekend that ended with the Havre Northstars American Legion baseball club undefeated, they look to continue their strong start with a pair of games against the Great Falls Chargers this Sunday at American Legion Field. While Havre head coach Patch Wirtzberger has not gotten a look at the Chargers yet, he believes he will have his team ready to play.

"That program has underwent some changes so not exactly sure what we're going to get from them," Wirtzberger said. "We just got to be ready for a tough team to come in here."

The Northstars opened the season with three games against the Billings Expos this past Saturday and Sunday. They defeated the Expos, 7-2 and 8-1, in two games Saturday night at American Legion Field and then defeated them, 7-0, Sunday morning. They began a fourth game Sunday but it was declared a no contest after one inning due to inclement weather.

The Northstars have been led by strong pitching performances so far this season. Both Brody Nanini and Carson Lunak pitched all seven innings in their starts this past weekend. Nanini struck out eight batters while only allowing one run, six hits and no walks. Lunak also pitched well by striking out seven hitters and allowing two runs, five hits and three walks.

Trenton Maloughney also had a strong showing to open the season. Sunday morning, he pitched the game's first five innings. He struck out eight batters while not allowing any runs or hits. Kale Reno pitched the last two innings of their game Sunday where he struck out a batter and allowed two hits. Wirtzberger believes that his pitchers can have another strong performance this weekend if they stay true to their preparation.

"They just got to keep preparing the way that they know that they should and they'll be fine," Wirtzberger said. "We're not going to expect them to go out there and throw shutouts every single time but if they go out and work hard and try not to walk too many guys, we'll stay in games."

Along with strong pitching, a consistent theme for the Northstars this season are slow starts on offense before exploding at the plate late in the game. If they are going to wake up their offense earlier in games, they will need to take advantage of opportunities.

"The execution needs to be a little cleaner," Wirtzberger said. "When we get guys on base, we need to get them over. When we get guys in scoring position, we got to step up and get hits and then battle."

The Northstars will look to players such as Eli Cloninger to lead the offense. Cloninger is first on the team with a batting average of 0.500 while driving in one run and scoring six runs in three games this season. Nanini leads the team with six RBIs this season on a .400 batting average. Along with Cloninger and Nanini, Caden Jenkins leads the team with four hits.

Along with getting their offense going earlier in games, Wirtzberger also hopes that his team can clean up some of their mistakes on defense.

"We can get a little bit cleaner in the field, too," Wirtzberger said. "We'd like to improve on that. It's early in the season and that is just one of the things that's going to take this team to the next level."

However, Wirtzberger believes his team has demonstrated promise this season and believes they will continue to get better as the season progresses.

"As long as they keep working hard and striving to get better at the things that they need to get better at, then they'll be in a position to win a lot of ball games," Wirtzberger said.

Havre and Great Falls in doubleheader starting at 1 p.m. at Legion Field.