Glacier, C-Falls confident heading to state tourneys
Familiar foes could serve to give the Glacier Wolfpack and Columbia Falls Wildkats confidence heading into the respective state softball tournaments.
Or could be a warning.
Glacier takes on Great Falls C.M. Russell at 11 a.m. Thursday, at the State AA tournament at the Fort Missoula Softball Complex.
About 40 miles south, at 3 p.m., the Wildkats will draw the winner of a first-round game between Lewistown and Livingston at the State A tournament.
Glacier beat the CMR Rustlers 11-6 on March 31; the Pack led 11-0 in the sixth inning of that one.
On April 8, Columbia Falls beat Livingston 15-3 and Lewistown 21-3 in back-to-back games at the Lewistown tournament.
State AA
The Wolfpack (11-9) has won four straight to put a flourish on an inconsistent regular season.
“We hope to be the scariest sixth seed anyone has ever played,” coach Abby Connolly said. “We have such a great group of leaders, with our three seniors (Sammie Labrum, Alli Kernan and Teagan Powell), and I think our underclassmen want to rally around them.”
Both Glacier and CMR have recent signature wins: Glacier beat the Western AA’s second seed, Missoula Sentinel, 15-6 last week; the Rustlers beat Billings Senior 1-0 behind the pitching of Brie Ginnaty.
Kernan and hard-throwing sophomore Ella Farrell have split the pitching duties for the Pack, which is 4-0 against the Eastern AA this season.
“I think we’re just very confident going in,” Connolly said. “The girls are playing their best softball. They’ve really trusted each other and have really bonded as a team.”
Billings West, Senior, Sentinel and Capital are the top seeds in the 12-team tournament.
Capital is 17-3 but started 0-2, with losses to Billings Senior (4-1) and Billings West (12-1). At the Great Falls Crossover Tournament on April 30 the Bruins beat Senior 2-0 but lost again to West, 9-2.
Both of West’s losses came to Senior, by scores of 7-6 and 3-1. The Senior Broncos still have pitcher Kennedy Venner, with her 216 strikeouts in 94 innings.
The Golden Bears have hit 66 home runs as a team, 16 of them from Marleigh Nieto to go with 43 runs batted in.
State A
Columbia Falls coach Dave Kehr is cautiously optimistic.
“It’s hard to beat teams over and over again,” he said, and his team proved it last week with a walk-off 5-4 win over Polson. Earlier in the year the Wildkats rolled on the defending State A champion Pirates, 14-4.
“With (Livingston) it would be our third meeting, and with Lewistown it would be our second time,” Kehr said. “Our big concern is to not get complacent. We played Livingston at the state tournament last year and they were very good, and they only lost a couple players.”
The Kats have been hitting all year and getting ace pitching from Maddie Moultray. Kehr is concerned that Moultray was ill early in the week — “She couldn’t have pitched today,” he said Tuesday — but also confident in her teammates Sydney Mann and Haden Peters.
“Syd did most of the pitching last year for us,” he said. “She’s more than capable.”
Polson has to remain a favorite thanks to Katelyne Druyvestein, who pitched the Pirates to last year’s title. Billings Central is 15-0, and has also not faced Columbia Falls this season.