Weatherproof Wildkats push through to title

There are several adjectives to describe the Columbia Fall Wildkats softball team.

Clutch. Unsinkable. Solid dancers. Weatherproof. Champs.

“A lot of memories, this one,” coach Dave Kehr said of the season, which ended with the school’s first state softball title. “And it all turned out fine.”

The weather didn’t always cooperate during the Wildkats’ 25-3 campaign, particularly the end — they played eight games in 12 days, and three of them were interrupted by lightning. Or other factors.

Saturday, for example, saw the State A championship game between the Kats and Billings Central get washed out. Mother Nature provided an exclamation point: A funnel cloud formed over the Belgrade Softball Complex.

“It didn’t touch the ground, and it dissipated after a little bit,” Kehr pointed out. Then he shook his head. Everything was set for a 2 p.m. start. “Never stepped on the field,” he said.

“It just started sprinkling, and then we saw lightning,” junior pitcher Maddie Moultray said. “So they were like, ‘OK, we’ll delay it half an hour.’ Then it started downpouring, and the hail was, like, huge.”

Twenty-one games had been played in Belgrade, though a lot of Thursday’s action — including Columbia Falls’ opener with Hamilton — was pushed to Friday by rain. Game No. 22 was moved to Gallatin High School in Bozeman.

Where, with the score 3-2 in favor of the Wildkats, it was delayed by lightning.

Let’s back up. On May 16, the Kats played their regular-season finale at perennial power Polson, with a top seed out of the Northwest A at stake. They had piled up six runs in the third inning to take a 9-3 lead when the skies opened up.

Kehr felt his team had the Pirates on the ropes. Would this reprieve — the game would pick up at the same point the following day at 4 p.m. — give Polson a second wind? Then he looked in his dugout and his team was having a dance party.

On May 17, Columbia Falls scored three more runs in that third inning. The final was 13-3.

“The girls didn’t care,” Kehr said. “We had the same thing in the (state) championship game: We’re up 3-0, and then it’s 3-2, and I’m thinking, ‘It’s getting tight.’ Not them.”

In between was the Western A Divisional in Frenchtown. The biggest test there was not the weather but the Libby Loggers, who scored seven runs in the top of the sixth inning to erase Columbia Falls’ 2-0 lead.

The Wildkats promptly answered with two-run doubles from Kyrah Trenkle, Aspen Dawson and Haden Peters.

“The Libby game was a turning point,” Kehr said. “Down 7-2 in the sixth inning, we pull the game out, 8-7. I felt from them like it doesn’t matter where we’re at, we can’t lose a game.”

The Kats won the divisional title 11-7 over Polson, thumped Hamilton 16-3 in their State A opener and then found themselves down 3-2 to Billings Central on Friday.

The Rams, mindful that Maddy Collins hit a homer against Hamilton and was 2-for-2 against them, put her on with runners on second and third.

“They intentionally walked her to get to Sophie Robbins, because she was hitting so well,” Kehr said. “To walk Maddy Collins was not something, early in the year, I think you would do. She came up really big.

“Sophie came up, hit the ball into centerfield and we scored two anyway.”

By the end, with darkness closing in at Gallatin High on Saturday — the Raptors’ diamond doesn’t have lights — Columbia Falls had won 19 straight games. The Wildkats were 2-2 at one point, including an 8-7 loss to Glacier.

“We should have won it,” Kehr said. “We watched them throughout the season, because they were 8-0, 9-0. Then they beat Polson 15-0.”

Then the Wolfpack won the AA title, a few hours before the Kats won theirs.

The State A final started around 5:30 p.m., with no pregame introduction or public address announcer. The lightning delay had officials thinking that if Central forced an if-necessary game, it would be Monday in Helena.

“We were like, ‘We don’t want to play Monday; we want to play right now,” Moultray said.

So the Wildkats played on, building an 8-2 lead going to the bottom of the seventh.

“Runner on one, two outs and there’s two strikes,” Moultray said. “And the sprinklers turn on.”

“My outfielders were out there running around,” Kehr said. “The guy couldn’t figure out how to turn them off.”

Eventually, the teams decided to play through it. And as Moultray toed the slab, the sprinklers shut off. Soon the final out was recorded. The Wildkats were champs, for the first time, after literally weathering all the storms. And other factors.

Fritz Neighbor can be reached at 406-758-4463 or fneighbor@dailyinterlake.com.