Helena's Cy Miller pitches every inning of Wednesday's 10-0 blowout of Bozeman at the American Legion State AA Baseball Tournament in Great Falls. Gary Marshall, BMGphotos.com
For the second-straight year, the tournament field is limited to seven Montana-based teams. The Bozeman Bucks enter the five-day double elimination tournament as the defending champion, also for the second consecutive year.
Wednesday featured three first-round contests with berths to the winners side of the bracket on the line.
Helena stepped off the bus in Great Falls ready to hit. All singles, the Senators racked up 13 hits in five innings to run-rule Bozeman in the first round of the state tournament, 10-0.
“We knew they were going to throw Brady [Higgs] and he’s a good pitcher,” Senators head coach Jon Burnett said. “We knew we’d have to take good at-bats -- he keeps guys off-balance, and has the ability to throw multiple pitches for a strike. Really just trying to have good at-bats, work the middle with our approaches and I thought we did a great job with that.”
Five different Senators collected at least two hits in the win with Matt Burton leading the way atop Helena’s lineup with a 3-for-4 effort.
