Twins, Mariners gear up for State A Legion

The Glacier Twins are getting used to this noise: Their 4-1 win over the Kalispell Lakers on Sunday in Florence capped their fourth West A District baseball title in Kevin Slaybaugh’s five seasons as coach.

Now comes the Montana/Alberta A American Legion tournament, beginning Wednesday at Polson’s O’Malley Park. The Twins take on the Lethbridge Miners at 2 p.m.; the host Mission Valley Mariners face another Alberta team, the Vauxhall Spurs, at 5 p.m. 

Slaybaugh allows that his team has not faced the Miners, or any other team in this field besides the Mariners. They’ll be going into this thing almost blind. 

"We just have to play our game and go down the path we want to go, and we’ll be fine,” said Slaybaugh said. “We’ve been pretty solid. We’ve got some guys at the top, some older kids, and a few younger kids. And the younger kids have kept us going.” 

Bolstered by the return of super senior Jake McIntyre, the Twins are combining solid hitting with strong pitching for a 28-11 record.  

Kellen Kroger leads the pitching staff alongside Maddox Muller and 16-year-old Trent DeRosa. Offensively, Nolan Amerman has been a problem for other teams at the top of the order. 

“I guess you could say we have quality,” Slaybaugh said. “We don’t have quantity right now.” Just 12 Twins are heading to State, but they’re battle-tested by, among others, the Lakers.  

Kalispell’s A team went 2-4 against Glacier in a span of 12 days, took second at Districts but missed out on state because Mission Valley, as tournament host, landed one of the West’s two berths. 

“They should be going down and playing,” Slaybaugh offered. “We played them six times and all six games were a battle.” 

Not that the 25-19 Mariners owe anyone an apology. They’ve been a perennial power in the West A, and scored the most stunning win at the District tourney when Wyatt Wadsworth hit a go-ahead grand slam in a 7-6 win over the Bitterroot Bucs in the first round. 

Like the Twins, the Mariners haven’t seen their first-round foe — Vauxhall is 29-9 — or anyone else in the field.  

“You always like to play some fresh blood,” said Drew DuMont, a longtime who took over for Brad Fisher as coach this season. “I see they have a great record. 

“Stats don’t show what we’ve really got. We’ve put it together here and there, and we have a good senior group.” 

One of those seniors is Dawson DuMont, Drew’s son; another is Cymian Kauley, who came back from Army Reserves to give Mission Valley another arm out of the pen.  

The elder DuMont notes he and Fisher have known these players since their Little League days, then up through Legion ball. 

“The Wadsworth boys (Wyatt and Cole) are always awesome. They’re fun to watch,” he said. “Cody Haggard has been hitting the ball well for us. It’s a good group, and I think we’ll just keep growing.” 

Dawson DuMont, Cole Wadsworth and Landon Shoemake lead the starting rotation. “Cash Atkinson has been a great closer for us,” Drew DuMont added. 

The championship game is set for 11 a.m. Sunday. 

State A 

July 31-Aug. 4, Polson 

Wednesday’s Games

Game 1: Belgrade Bandits (24-13) vs. Miles City Mavericks (24-29), 9 a.m. 

Game 2: Billings Cardinals (56-11) vs. Gallatin Valley Outlaws (40-22), 11:30 a.m. 

Game 3: Glacier Twins (28-11) vs. Lethbridge Miners (36-17), 2 p.m. 

Game 4: Vauxhall Spurs (29-9) vs. Mission Vally Mariners (25-19), 5 p.m. 

Thursday

Game 5: Loser 1 vs. Loser 3, 9 a.m. 

Game 6: Loser 2 vs. Loser 4, 11:30 

Game 7: Winner 1 vs. Winner 3, 2 p.m. 

Game 8: Winner 2 vs. Winner 4, 5 p.m. 

Friday

Game 9: Winner 6 vs. Loser 7, 11:30 a.m. 

Game 10: Winner 5 vs. Winner 8, 2 p.m. 

Game 11: Winner 7 vs. Winner 6, 5 p.m. 

Saturday

Game 12: Winner 9/10 vs. Loser 11, 1 p.m.* 

Game 13: Winner 9/10 vs. Winner 11, 4 p.m.*  

(*-Avoiding rematch of earlier tournament game) 

Sunday: 

Game 14: Championship, 11 a.m. 

Game 15: If necessary, 45 minutes after first game ends