Prep Softball: Great Falls High sweeps Bozeman

When Bozeman’s Kaley Wenzel clouted a grand slam to give her team a 5-1 lead, it was like a punch in the nose to the Great Falls High Bison.

A little while later Tierney Weinholz experienced the real thing when a foul ball bounced up and banged into her face.

“That,” she said, “ticked me off.”

Weinholz then responded with a home run as the Bison rallied for 11 runs in the top of the seventh to post a 15-5 victory and earned an Eastern AA girls’ softball sweep of Bozeman Saturday afternoon at Multi-Sports Complex.

Hannah Schaffer and Kaitlyn Konesky also connected for homers in the big seventh inning as coach Mike Coleman’s Bison, 7-6 victors in the first game, completed the twinbill sweep. Great Falls High improved to 4-3 in league play and 6-5 overall.

Konesky, who also homered in the first game, contributed a two-run double to go along with the three-run blast in the seventh-inning uprising.

Schaffer’s blast was a three-run shot. The homer off the bat of Weinholz was a two-run bomb and was most unexpected, considering the foul ball accident that preceded it.

“I don’t even know how it happened. It was so fast. I think it hit up into my facemask and got me,” Weinholz said. “I couldn’t see. It was just intense pain.”

She wasn’t happy about it. But she got back in the box and pretty soon put a hurt on the pitch.

“The victory was great,” Weinholz said, “but it shouldn’t have been that close. Obviously we’re a great hitting team and we should have been doing that from the beginning.”

Wenzel’s slam in the fifth, a two-out drive to left, put the Hawks in position to win. But the Bison got three runs back in the sixth as Marina LaRocque, who won both games on the mound, had a two-round double.

Then in the seventh the Bison were bashing the ball up and down the order.

“All of us are very competitive and intense players and we all just really wanted to start hitting,” said Schaffer, who was 3-for-4 with four RBIs. “To win like this makes us mentally tough.”

Marihelen Held went 3-for-4 with two doubles and a homer in the first game. She reached base five times in the nightcap, with a double, two walks and two HBPs.

Konesky knocked in seven runs on the day.

“We’re finally starting to swing the bats like we can, and it’s good to see,” said Coleman. “We need to win every conference game. And if we play like (the seventh inning of Game 2), we can win a lot of them, if not all of them.”

Coleman said the two gutsy victories were gratifying for him.

“It’s great to watch the girls get better,” he said.

Senior shortstop Sydney Stites went 4-for-6 with three doubles on the day for Bozeman, which fell to 1-12 overall and 0-9 in league play.

“In that second game the final score doesn’t indicate what a good game that was,” said Hawks’ coach Troy Hostetler, a former fine all-around athlete at Bozeman High. “I told our girls they need to hold their heads high. We competed well for 14 innings and just came up short. If we keep playing like, we’ll keep improving and we’ll be a tough out by the end of the year.”

The Bison will be back at Multi-Sports Complex Tuesday afternoon at 4:15 to take on crosstown rival C.M. Russell High.

Great Falls High 7, Bozeman 6

Bozeman 002 400 0 – 6 8 1

Great Falls 114 100 x – 7 9 2

Hope Titchbourne and Ava Laufenberg; Hannah Schaffer, Marina LaRocque (4) and Caitlyn Konesky. W: LaRocque. L: Titchbourne

Bozeman: Sydney Stites 2-3, Faith Perrins 2-3, Kaley Wenzel 2-4, Hailey Buckley 0-3, Liv Kack 0-4, Kam Bayse 1-4, Ava Laufenberg 0-3, Taylor Martin 0-3, Casey Stites 1-3.

Great Falls Hjgh: McKenzie Staats 1-4, Alyssa Marez 1-1, Caitlyn Konesky 1-4, Marihelen Held 3-4, Bailey Ferda 0-3, Bailey Durnell 1-2, Hannah Schaffer 1-3, Tierney Wienholz 1-3, Kelsey Walker 0-2.

2B: Stites 2, Marez, Held 2, Durnell. HR: Konesky, Held

RBIs: Perrins 3, Wenzel, Konesky 2, Held 2

Great Falls High 15, Bozeman 5

Great Falls High 000 103 (11) – 15 14 4

Bozeman 001 040 0 – 5 6 1

Marina LaRocque and Caitlyn Konesky; Hope Titchbourne and Kam Bayse. W: LaRocque. L: Titchbourne.

Great Falls High: McKenzie Staats 2-5, Alyssa Marez 2-5, Marihelen Held 1-1, Caitlyn Konesky 2-5, Bailey Durnell 2-4, Hannah Schaffer 3-4, Marina LaRocque 1-4, Bailey Ferda 0-4, Tierney Wienholz 1-4.

Bozeman: Sydney Stites 2-3, Faith Perrins 0-4, Kaley Wenzel 1-4, Hailey Buckley 0-4, Liv Kack 1-3, Kam Bayse 0-3, Ava Laufenberg 0-2, Taylor Martin 2-3, Kayla Nielson 0-3.

2B: Held, Konesky, LaRocque, Stites. HR: Konesky, Schaffer, Weinholz, Wenzel.

RBIs: Konesky 5, Durnell, Schaffer 4, LaRocque 2, Ferda, Weinholz 2, Wenzel 4.