Season ends for Purple Rain

BOZEMAN — The Polson 16U Purple Rain softball team lost two games against teams it had previously beat at the Montana State ASA JO Tournament in Bozeman last weekend.

“I think overall, we were very young and inexperienced,” coach Larry Smith said. “I think they were a little big eyed to be at the state tournament. It took an inning or two for the nerves to shake out.”

Their first game was against the Missoula Bandits, a team the Purple Rain beat in the Kalispell Championship 6-1. This time Missoula won 4-2.

The game was at 9:45 a.m., something that wasn’t favorable to the Purple Rain.

“I guess it could always be earlier,” Staci Benson said.

The first inning took a toll on Polson with three errors in the field that led to the Bandits scoring.

“We just had three terrible errors in the first inning,” Smith said. “After that first inning, we didn’t make any more mistakes and played pretty clean. They definitely don’t do well in morning games or in the first inning.”

At the plate, Polson out-hit Missoula seven hits to six. However, the Purple Rain left nine stranded.

“We got on base but couldn’t cross the plate,” Smith said.

After the game, Polson waited 24 hours to play its next game against the Helena Thunder. Polson beat the Thunder earlier this summer in the Helena Championship 14-10.

This time around, Helena won 3-0.

At the plate, Kayla Duford went 2-for-4 as both teams totaled six hits. Smith said his team was impatient at the plate and swung at some bad pitches, this time leaving 11 runners on base.

“It was a timing thing,” Smith said. “The timely hits weren’t there.”

Polson played both games with only nine players. Ashley Johnson didn’t make it to the tournament because she had been sick the week leading up to the games.

Smith said the team felt the loss of Johnson.

“She was our leading base stealer and one of our best outfielders,” Smith said.

Shay Duford pitched both games for the Purple Rain. In the first game, she gave up six hits, struck out four and allowed two walks.

“For a young gal, I think she pitched extremely well,” Smith said. “She did really well under the circumstances. She had two strikeouts in the first inning of the first game.”

Kodi Woods said Shay isn’t phased by the fact that she is a couple years younger then the batters she faces.

“The first games were tough because she was nervous, but now it doesn’t faze her,” Woods said.

The Purple Rain team is a young team overall. Next year, the team will lose only one player, Benson, due to age.

“As their coach, I’m proud,” he said. “They stepped up and did 100 percent better than what most people expected they would do.”

Smith said a core group of players will return next year and are already anxious for next year’s season.

“They’ve got that fire in their eyes,” Smith said. “They don’t like being beat out. They amazed me with their performance.”