Mother nature must be a fan of high school sports, because she’s not acting like she wants the spring season to end.

A strange brew of rain, sun, clouds, wind, more sun, a rapidly re-graying sky, a couple bolts of lightning and an encroaching sheet of hail (just for good measure) made a soupy mess of the Conrad Complex on Thursday afternoon and threw a wrench in Flathead High School’s ambitious plan to host the Class AA and B-C softball tournaments simultaneously at the same facility.

But the tournament itself, thanks to some quick action from Flathead administrators and the Montana High School Association, is in terrific shape.

Tournament officials moved the first batch of Thursday’s games — which had been started at Conrad — to higher ground and dryer fields at the Kidsports Complex, decisively announcing to move all of the remaining games of the tournament to the home of (gasp) the Glacier Wolfpack.

Once four games are played today at 8 a.m. — the set of games rescheduled from Thursday at 4 p.m. — the tournament will be back on schedule. And while the forecast isn’t perfect the next 48 hours, it would be a surprise at this point if action didn’t end, as planned, sometime Saturday afternoon.

The call to move the games came just 45 minutes after play was stopped, and it was unquestionably the right one. The decision ultimately came down to MHSA Executive Director Mark Beckman, who did so in consultation with Flathead Principal Peter Fusaro and the Braves’ activities director, Bryce Wilson.

“When I made the decision with Peter and with Bryce, we looked at the fields and said we have to get games played, it has to start now,” Beckman said. “If we have fields that are dry, fields that are at least getting prepared, we’re going there.”

The move was understandably disappointing to Flathead administrators, who along with grounds crews from Flathead County had poured countless hours into preparing Conrad following rains earlier this week. On Wednesday, Wilson said he and his staff had been on-site all week, and at least 35 staffers had been scheduled to work. More than that, the chance to show off the school’s home fields and athletic department staff was washed away by the rain.

“We need to get the games in,” Wilson conceded on Thursday. “You’ve got to look at the good of it — it’s not our host site but we got to host a tournament and we’ll get the games in, which is the most important thing.

“The crew (at Conrad) did a lot of work and I thought they had the facility looking great and it was ready. The thing is, the field down there it doesn’t hold a lot of water and if we weren’t going to be able to play on that (Thursday) they didn’t think that (Friday) morning they’d be able to get the games in.”

Beckman is hosting his 19th softball tournament since joining the MHSA and spoke with pride Thursday when he noted every softball tournament since that time has been completed in full. Knowing weather is always a question mark in the spring, Beckman said backup plans had been in place for some time both in Kalispell and Belgrade, site of the Class A tournament.

“We knew we had (Kidsports) as an option here so we were happy about that, but we have also been in contact with Missoula in case things got too bad and we could move them down to Missoula,” he said. “We had a situation that happened in the (19)80s, before I was in office, when the tournament couldn’t be played at all and that’s not right at all.”

Moving games to Kidsports might be disappointing for Flathead officials, but it’s just the opposite on the north side of town. The defending state champions now get to play for a second straight title on their home field, and they took advantage on Thursday, hitting three home runs after their game against Billings West was moved to Kidsports. The Wolfpack won the game 6-0.

While the change of venue was being discussed, but before it was announced, Glacier coach Andy Fors was unsurprisingly not opposed to the idea of chasing a championship on the Wolfpack’s home diamond.

“I think the girls would be excited about the opportunity to play a state tournament game on their home field, so that could be kind of fun for them,” he said. “Regardless of where they end up, we’ve been waiting all week for this game to start.”

Those in charge set pride aside and did the right thing in moving the state tournament to Kidsports.

Because of that, Mother Nature will get to see a little more softball, and seeing how it turned out she’ll probably be wearing blue and green.

Andy Viano is a sports reporter and columnist who once hid from hail under a flimsy tent. He can be reached at 758-4446 or [email protected].