Knights win opener at districts

The bats weren’t working, so the K of C Knights played some small ball to win their first playoff game Thursday.

At Havre for the Montana-Alberta American Legion A North District tournament, the Knights only mustered three hits but beat the Great Falls Chargers 5-1.

“We had a lot of good atbats early on, a decent amount of hard-hit outs but their pitcher was keeping us off-balance for sure,” said Knights coach Lane Aman on the phone from Havre. “I think running the bases aggressively is something we pride ourselves on, we’ve done that all year. Today we bunted more than we typically do, it’s nice we can pull that out of our back pocket.”

A Matt Gange squeeze bunt brought home the game’s first run in the first inning, but Hat pitcher Ethan Boutkan shut the door after that. Joel Herron threw out a runner at the plate to end the fourth, then the Knights started finding ways to score on Chargers hurler Nolan Croskrey.

“We scratched one across in the fourth, Ethan Loran stole third and they threw it away trying to get him,” said Aman. “That was a big steal seeing as how the bats weren’t coming along. A little bit of baserunning helped us.”

Zach Stark doubled in a run and scored in the fifth, then Boutkan and Travis Small executed a double steal, both scoring on Keon Vereschagin’s double in the sixth.

Boutkan retired the last six batters he faced for the complete game win, finishing with nine strikeouts, two walks and only four hits against.

Medicine Hat next plays the Lewistown Redbirds today in a winner’s bracket semifinal. Great Falls faces Fort Macleod, which lost 15-0 to Lewistown Thursday. The double knockout format plus two teams advancing to the State championship next week means Medicine Hat could put themselves in a great position if they can get past the Redbirds, who they’ve only beat once in four tries this summer.

Aman was happy to see his team remain calm Thursday, and hopes that mentality continues through the weekend.

“It was good, they stayed confident throughout the game,” said Aman. “Nobody ever got down, that was good to see.”

Wyatt Bergen will get the start Friday.

“A little bit of baserunning helped us.” – Lane Aman, Knights coach