Bulldog Baseball Opens First Season To Big Crowds, 2 Runs, No Wins
 | Author:
Linda Kent, MT43News Correspondent
MT43 News Correspondent |
Bulldog Baseball Opens First Season to Big Crowds, 2 Runs, No Wins
Linda Kent
MT43News Correspondent
Broadwater High School’s Bulldog baseball team came out winless but still in love with the game after their pair of home matches in front of a packed house at McCarthy Field last week. For a region whose love of baseball began before Montana was a state, it marked a new chapter in nearly 150 years of Broadwater County tradition.
“It’s definitely a learning season,” head coach Gary Bauman said of his team’s inaugural outings against Class A Dillon and Class AA Butte. “They’re playing well-established teams with players who play 60 games a year.”
Given that half of Bauman’s 14 players hadn’t hit the field in over a year and nine of those are freshmen and sophomores facing juniors and seniors, Bauman was more than pleased with the outcome.
“We’re focusing on little victories,” Bauman said.
The team lost to Dillon on Friday 17-2, but the Bulldogs’ first baseball outing also featured the team’s first scores, when Bo Sumner advanced to first base after being hit by a pitch, then found himself rounding the bases on a solid triple by Colby Flynn. Flynn would score off a drive to the second baseman by Dallas Fligge.
Saturday’s game against Butte High left the Townsend team with a 22-0 loss against a senior Butte pitcher with an 85 mile per hour throw.
“It was the first time they’ve seen a ball moving that fast,” Bauman said. “Our pitching machine doesn’t throw that fast.”
The Butte pitcher struck out 8 of 11 at-bats from Townsend. Koda Korr gave the Townsend team one of those little victories, stealing second and third after being walked on base.
Bauman said his goals for the season are not about wins and losses, but about ensuring the kids in the program learn and develop enough to enjoy themselves and return to the team next year.
“It’s feasible we won’t win a game this year,” Bauman said. The smallest school other than Townsend in the district is Butte Central, with approximately 150 students, but located in a community where those players have much easier access to playing on American Legion teams than Townsend kids.
Since the team raised its own start-up funds, covering uniforms and equipment, the program runs at little cost to the school district this year – mainly in the form of pay for officials and coaches.
While the stats may not be stellar, Townsend players’ enthusiasm for the sport is.
“Two hours after the game” with Butte High, Bauman said, “they were back at the field playing baseball. Because that’s what they want to do.”
