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Home  News Latest Tri-County ends season at District
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Tri-County ends season at District |
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Wednesday, 30 July 2008 |
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Page 1 of 2 By Buck Traxler, I-O Editor
 CEREMONIAL PITCH – Former Conrad resident David Brown , now living in Texas, came up to Conrad to throw out the ceremonial first pitch of the Northern District American Legion baseball game on Thursday. He was instrumental in getting Legion ball back on track in the Tri-County area and making many big improvement at the ball field. He is throwing the ball to Cardinal catcher Bjorn Swanson. I-O Photo by Buck Traxler
Eight teams took part in the double elimination contest that started on Thursday and ended Sunday afternoon. Taking the field at one of, if not the best ball field in all of northcentral Montana were the Lethbridge Miners, Great Falls Stallions, Great Falls Sparkies, Fort Macleod Royals, Medicine Hat Knights, Vauxhall Spurs, and the Havre NorthStars.
The first game on Thursday featured the Stallions, a 6-3 winner over the Miners. Next up were the Knights who knocked off the Royals 8-7. The Spurs came on to stop the Sparkies 11-5.
Tri-County and Havre had the featured game of the day at 5 p.m. with the official opening ceremonies taking place. The highlight of the opening festivities was having former Conrad resident, David Brown, toss out the first pitch to Cardinal catcher Bjorn Swanson.
The Cardinals opened the game with Jake Robison on the mound. He sat the NorthStars down in order, getting three ground outs.
In the bottom half of the first inning Colby Johnson led off and brought the crowd to their feet. He launched the first pitch to him into a strong wind that sailed over the left field wall for a quick 1-0 Cardinal lead.
The score stayed that way until Havre tied the game in the top of the third. They stranded a runner at third with the batter looking at called third strike from Robison.
In the fourth and fifth innings the NorthStars pushed across two runs each in their half of the innings. The Cards answered with single runs in the bottom half of their innings to stay close, but trailing 5-3.
The Cards rallied back and led 6-5 late in the game. Orin Johnson came on to relieve Robison in the top of the eighth only to have the NorthStars rough him up and push five runs across the plate. The Cards came back with one run of their own to make the score 10-7.
In the ninth inning Tri-County loaded the bases but Havre shut the door and took a first round win, 10-7. The tough-to-take loss put the Cardinals in loser out play.
Friday morning the home boys took the field with the Sparkies. Brent Bandow started on the mound and was staked to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning. Tri-County had two batters get hit by pitches, C. Johnson and Mike Shea. They got three singles to score their runs. Both squads scored single runs in the second inning.
Then in the third frame, the Cards broke the contest wide open, exploding for seven runs.
O. Johnson and Shea opened the inning with safeties. Swanson followed, scorching a double to left center scoring Johnson. Justin Philipps then executed perfect suicide squeeze bunt that seemed to confuse the Sparkie infield, allowing not only Shea, but Swanson as well to motor home from second for a 6-1 lead.
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