Softball gets ready for divisionals

The Plains-Hot Springs softball team enters the Class B-C 7B Divisional tournament Thursday and Friday at Libby High School winning six of its last eight contests.

In the tournament, four of the eight participating teams will advance onto state but according to Thompson, despite the high-percentage chance of making it, it “won’t be easy.”

Plains-Hot Springs was swept by one of the top ranked teams in Class B-C, Mission-Charlo-Arlee 9-5 and 6-5. They have gained a significant amount of confidence from their performance from the previous two weeks, according to assistant coach David Thompson.

“If we execute, we have a chance of winning,” David Thompson said. “That being said, in the playoffs we will be looking at some good pitching. In Divisionals your defense better be excellent because in a tournament, because there will be a lot of one-run baseball games.”

Thompson said his team

continues to work on some of the fundamental aspects of the game.

“We’ve worked on some of the fundamental things and we really hit pretty well in a game,” Thompson said. “We must make sure to remember those fundamentals and execute what we’ve been practicing. The girls can swing the bats and they just need to have confidence to go and do their best.”

Thompson said he was “pleased” with how his team performed against top-ranked M-A-C.

“Overall, I was pleased with the way we played but we gave up a couple of runs that we really shouldn’t have,” Thompson said. “Our performance really gave us confidence that we can play with pretty much any team. There are a couple of things that we need to correct. We need to work on how we run the bases at times and in the second game against M-A-C, we had the tying run on third with no outs and we couldn’t get the runner home. Those are some of the things that we have to work on over the next couple of weeks.”

The Trotters’, Savage Heat teams weren’t phased by the quality pitching of Lady Bulldogs’ Randee Charlo.

“We actually did hit the baseball pretty well and we made up the plays when we had to,” Thompson said. “Except for the last two games, we’ve held up fine. It is going to take consistent hitting against better pitchers and Charlo is a pretty good pitcher. We should have given her more problems, been more consistent, and had better at-bats against her.”

Thompson said he felt one key for his team’s success will be simple: hitting.

“We will hit pretty well and in a game, it’s hard to make sure if we are going to remember those fundamentals and execute what we have been practicing,” Thompson said. “The girls can swing the bats and they have the confidence to do their best. They have to be stingy on defense. There are times we are stingy on defense but we depend a lot on our pitcher. We can’t leave her out there all day because we will wear her out.”

In order to stand out in the tournament, Thompson said his team will have to execute.

“The team that comes to plays defense and swings the bats the best is going to win the tournament,” Thompson said. “I am hoping the softball gets away from us at the time. It can be high scoring and either team has a chance to win.”