Glacier All-Stars take state Babe Ruth

The Daily Inter Lake

BOZEMAN - One more time.

The 14U Glacier All-Stars are Montana Babe Ruth baseball champions.

The Glacier team defeated Bozeman 10-4 in the championship game on Sunday.

"This is back-to-back for these kids. They won it last year as 13-year-olds," said coach Eric May. "Three of the last four years, they've won it. They are a good bunch of kids," he said.

Glacier defeated Mission Valley 6-1 in the semis. Meanwhile, Bozeman won the other bracket with a 2-0 victory over Great Falls.

Bozeman led the championship game 2-0 after three innings.

But Glacier got its bats going in the fourth.

Logan Harwood led off the fourth with a bunt single. That was followed by a walk by Jace Kalbfleisch and another bunt single by Shane Marcial.

With the bases loaded, Peter Seymour in a fielder's choice. Bozeman elected to throw home, but Harwood slid in safely, knocking the ball out of the catcher's hand.

The next batter, Jake May, doubled off the left center field wall to score two more runs. Cooper Olson added a single and Colin King followed with a 2-RBI single.

By the time the final out of the inning was recorded, Glacier led 6-2. It added four more in the fifth.

"Pretty exciting stuff. The kids were ecstatic," the coach said.

The win was made more impressive by the fact that Glacier had to wait through two rain delays and that Bozeman had beaten the Glacier team twice already this year, including the first game of the tournament.

"When it really counted, we got the better of them," May said.

The victory means Glacier will move on to regional baseball during the first week of August in Moscow, Idaho.

"These kids, they've been to these regional tournaments. They're used to it. They've seen the talent and we've won some games," May said.

May also reported that Glacier was awarded the sportsmanship award for the tournament.

"That really says a lot about these kids," he said.