Little League Softball Regional action gets underway

The culmination of the ASA/USA Junior Olympic State softball tournaments may bring to a close summer softball playing for some, but for others it merely transitions into the postseason segment of Little League (LL) girls competition. Two Missoula-based Garden City Little League softball teams won their respective state tournaments this past week. The Garden City Major (12U) All-stars will be heading to their Western Regional in San Bernardino, California, this weekend.

But of particular local interest is the Missoula-based Garden City Junior League (14U) softball squad, which features a quartet of players with Mission Valley area affiliations: Josie Caye (Polson), Destiny Manuel (Charlo), Morgan Holmes (second generation Ronan grad) and Grace Hardy (second generation Charlo grad). They will compete in their West Regional from July 20-27 in Tucson, Arizona. Should they win, they will travel to the Junior League World Series to be held in Kirkland, Wash., from July 30-Aug 5.

The Senior League (16U) West Regional will be played in Missoula from July 21-25 on account of predecessor Zootown squads having won the West Regional the past three years in a row. The Senior League Softball World Series is played in Lower Sussex, Delaware. Readers may recall that the 2015 Zootown squad swept their competition to win the World Series title that year, an indicator of just how far the competitiveness of Montana softball has progressed in recent years.

Those who may wish to help defray travel expenses for the club have a couple of different options options for contributing:

Snail mail: GCSLL – c/o Juniors All Stars, PO Box 1204, Missoula, MT 59806-1204

GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/bret3b-gcsll-juniors-world-series-run .

Below is an abridged recap of how the players with Mission Valley affiliations fared in the state Little League playoff:

Garden City Junior League 18,

MT Dist 1 LL All-Stars 0

Billings ( 0 )00 10 – 1 2 5

Missoula (10)24 2x – 18 11 1

Faith LaRue, Sophia Williams (4) and Ava Lindseth. Grace Hardy (7K), Mackenzie Moore (4) and Emily Hermes, Dre Haran (4)

GARDEN CITY – Josie Caye 2-3(2RBI,BB,SB,2R), Morgan Holmes 2-4(2x2B,3RBI,2R), Destiny Manuel 1-2(RBI,HB), Hardy 1-3(2RBI,BB,2R)

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Garden City Junior League

MT Dist 1 LL All-Stars 0

Missoula (10)65 30 – 28 14 2

Billings ( 0 )00 00 – 0 0 10

Shelby Dunwell, Mackenzie Moore (3) and Emily Hermes, Dre Haran (3). Autumn Peters, Faith LaRue (2), Sophia Williams (5) and Ava Lindseth.

GARDEN CITY – Josie Caye 3-3(2B,5RBI,3BB,SB,4R), Grace Hardy 2-3(2B,3BB,SB,4R), Destiny Manuel 2-2 (2B,RBI, 2BB,SB,3R), Morgan Holmes 2-3 (2RBI,2BB,HB,5R)