No favorites at district tournament

LIBBY - There's nobody in this weekend's American Legion baseball Western A district tournament that doesn't scare the coaches of two of the top teams.

"There is nobody you can rule out," said Mission Valley coach Jami Hanson.

The Mission Valley Mariners are the No. 1 team from the south. Host Libby (38-16, 16-0) went undefeated in the north for the No. 1 seed. They finished their regular season with a sweep of the Kootenai Valley Rangers on Sunday.

The tournament begins at 10:05 a.m. Thursday at Libby's Gehring Field.

"This district tournament is going to be fun. We haven't seen many teams from the northern half other than Libby. Kootenai Valley, (Kalispell) Lakers ... you never know," Hanson said.

On top of that, Missoula and both teams from the Bitterroot are tough this year, Hanson said.

"We all thumped on each other all year long. It's going to be a great district tournament. I would encourage everybody to go. You're going to see good hitting, good pitching and good defense," he said.

"Going in, you'd have to look at Mission Valley and the two Bitterroot teams and us (as favorites)," said Libby coach Kelly Morford.

"But Missoula has played those guys tough down south. It's kind of a different year in that it's wide open and everybody has a shot."

"We had a good regular season," he said.

"Hopefully we can build on that and come out of this district tournament. We've got a really good group of kids. They deserve a chance to play in the state tournament.

I can't tell you what is going to happen," Morford said.

But it's going to be a lot of fun, he added.

The Mariners finished the regular season on a rough note - they lost their last two games in Florence on Sunday.

"Not what you want to do," the coach said.

"But we just have to play. Our pitching has been continuing to throw well and the kids have been playing well in tournaments," he said.

"For us to do well, we just got to get things going early."

There is one other note that will make things interesting. Since Mission Valley is hosting the state tournament next week, it already has a slot in that tournament.

Two teams advance to the tournament from each district. But if Mission Valley isn't in the top two, then the only other team that will go is the district champion.

That's not a big deal, Morford said.

"Mission Valley is a good team, so I'd imagine they'd be in contention," he said.

As for health, both Morford and Hanson say their teams will be full force.

The Mariners are waiting on a doctor's appointment to see if one of their players - Derrick Rathe -will be cleared to play. Rathe has out most of the season, but Hanson is hopeful he will be able to go.

As for the Loggers, Will Reichel missed some time with a shoulder injury, but he was back this past weekend.