Kats lose to Loggers on the road, busy week ahead
<p>Wildkat Breanna Friar scores two at the top of the fifth inning against Libby last week. The Lady Loggers rallied to win the game.</p>
The Columbia Falls girls softball team had another tough conference loss last week. The Wildkats fell to Libby 10-6 away on April 17.
The Libby game featured three lead changes. The Lady Loggers went up 2-0 in the bottom of the third inning, but the Kats cut the margin to 2-1 in the fourth and then went up 3-2 in the top of the fifth.
But Libby racked up eight runs in the bottom of the fifth to make it 10-3. The Kats responded with three runs in the top of the sixth, but that was all they would get, as they couldn’t score in the top of the seventh.
Libby’s Kelsey Klin had four RBIs on two triples for the Lady Loggers. Tiffany Hummer and Madi Fetters both had doubles for the Wildkats.
The loss leaves the Kats at 1-2 in conference play with some work to do if they want to make the state playoffs. They lost to Polson earlier this season, which means they’ll likely need to beat Libby when they meet again in Columbia Falls on May 22 and beat Polson away on May 10 to keep their playoff hopes alive. Any win against Frenchtown would be great. Frenchtown is the top team in the state, but the Wildkats have beat them before.
Coach Dave Kehr has confidence in the girls.
“It’s early,” he said. “We just have to win some games ... We just need to get some timely hits.”
He noted the girls struck out six times against Libby. The girls need to get the bat on the ball.
The girls squared off against Flathead on Tuesday night after presstime at home. They face Ronan away on Thursday and then travel to the Frenchtown Invitational this weekend.
Kehr said the nonconference games will help the girls work out the kinks.
Columbia Falls 000 123 0 — 6 6 0
Libby 002 080 x — 10 10 3
Ashley Trueblood and Courtney Murray; Hannah England and Devon Gallagher. W — England (7-0). L — Trueblood.
COLUMBIA FALLS — Tiffany Hummer 1-4, Carlee Brown 1-3, Trueblood 0-3, Breanna Friar 2-4, Winter Kemppainen 0-3, Madi Fetters 1-4, Murray 0-3, Amanda Morrison 0-3, Samantha Collins 0-2, K. Hoerner 1-1, L. Fields 0-0.
LIBBY — England 1-3, Mahalia Wedel 1-1, Kelsey Klin 3-4, Gallagher 2-3, Auria Benefield 1-4, Dayln Germany 1-4, Rachel Rebo 1-3, Staci Regh 0-3, Kyra Lauer 0-1, Brooke Rosling 0-1, Abby Ennenga 1-1.
2B—Hummer, Fetters; Gallagher, Benefield, Germany; 3B—Klin (2); RBIs—Hummer (2), Brown, Friar (2); Klin (4), Gallagher, Germany (2), Rebo, Ennenga (2).