Welcome everybody to the Keeping Score podcast, presented by Corwin Motors. A lot more to impact this week as the weather wasn’t as much as a factor, some great games on the diamond, exciting track meets and tennis matchups to highlight so without further ado, let’s get into the action from last week you might have missed. 

Starting off with my game of the week, was a matchup between rivals Columbia Falls and Whitefish in a back-and-forth baseball where the Wildcats were able to escape with a 9-8 win at home. 

The Wildcats jumped out to an early 6-0 lead by the fourth inning, showing tremendous plate discipline as they scored 6 runs without recording a hit but drawing nine walks and finished with 12 as a team. 

Whitefish responded in the top of the fourth inning by smacking six-straight hits to cut the lead to 6-5. 

The Bulldogs added 3 more in the fifth to take a 8-6 lead before the Wildcats responded with three runs of their own, highlighted by Jory Hill’s triple to take a 9-8 lead into the final frame. 

That’s when my poster player of the week Reggie Sapa stepped up big for Columbia Falls striking out five of the next six batters for the save and left the tying run on third in 7th inning with no outs and didn’t allow any runs to score. It was a great game, and I was happy to be there to cover it.  

Columbia Falls picked up another win on Monday thanks to Nico Young throwing a five-inning, four-hit shutout and Jory Hill adding two hits and driving in two runs as the Wildcats beat Ronan 12-0. 

Whitefish was able to win their season opener 16-0 against Troy. Avery Caton doubled and tripled for Whitefish, driving in three runs and Luke Dalen and Christian Schwarderer also added three RBIs each. 

After dealing with multiple postponements, Bigfork baseball finally kicked off their season with a 18-0 win over Troy on Saturday. Sam Plummer went 3-for-3 with three RBIs and Hayden Mayer added three RBIs as well. 

Bigfork added another lopsided win on Monday, beating Noxon 15-0. Hayden Mayer added another three RBIs and Sam Plummer reached base all three times as he has still yet to be put out this season. 

Moving on to softball, Flathead was a few outs away from their first win of the season Tuesday against Libby before the Loggers fought back to win the game 7-5, after trailing 5-2 in the final inning. 

The 5-run final inning was capped off by Dakota Allen cranking a 3-run homerun to give the Loggers the victory. 

Flathead also dropped a Friday doubleheader to the Helena schools, losing to Helena high 3-0 and Capital 19-9. In the first game, Flathead were held to just two hits in the loss as they were without Mackenzie Brandt and Macey McIlhargey.  

The Bravettes bats going in game two, highlighted by Reese Conley hitting a solo home run and adding on an RBI single. Conley was also responsible for both hits in game 1, including a triple, so shout out to Reese on a great performance in the doubleheader. 

Glacier split their doubleheader on Friday with the Helena schools, beating Capital 10-0 in a rematch of last year’s State AA softball championship before losing 4-3 to Helena.  

In game 1, Ava Grady hit a sixth inning walk-off home run to give Glacier a 10-0 run-rule victory. Taylor Vivian started the scoring with a 2-run single in the first. Later in the inning as the Wolfpack batted around, Olivia Warriner doubled to right field and drove in Kaydee Walcheck as Glacier took an 8-0 lead.  

In game 2, Warriner started for the Wolfpack and went five innings, allowing four runs on six hit and she scored two runs herself. The Wolfpack were held to just three hits, with Cazz Rankosky added an RBI single. 

The Class A schools, Bigfork, Columbia Falls and Whitefish softball all had cancellations last week and are expected to return to schedule this week. 

Moving on to tennis, Sarah Loran and Allie Goff each picked up singles wins Friday as the Bravettes lost one tennis dual with Missoula Hellgate and drew with Missoula Sentinel in another. The Braves fell to Sentinel’s boys 6-2, and to Hellgate 8-0. Rowan Alexander and Michael Palmer picked up singles wins. 

For Glacier, Autumn Bashara earned a pair of victories Friday as the Glacier girls split their duals against Missoula Sentinel and Hellgate. Bashara defeated Sentinel’s Claire Karlovich as the Wolfpack won 6-2, and downed Hellgate’s Shaylynn Tolleson-Knee in a 5-3 defeat.  

Carl Bitney and Sam Engellant picked up a doubles win for the boys as they defeated Sentinel 5-3. Hellgate swept the Wolfpack 8-0 in their dual.  

For Class A schools, Bigfork boys and girls both lost to Polson with identical scores of 6-1 in their respective dual matches.  Whitefish boys downed Bigfork Friday 4-0 and the Bulldogs picked up two more wins 4-1 against Ronan and 6-1 against Dillon. 

Whitefish girls also picked up wins against Ronan and Bigfork, cruising to 6-0 and 6-0 victories. 

We have come to the final leg of the podcast where we have to highlight track.  

Ben Bliven won the 100 and 200, Lane Chivers swept the hurdles and Williams Hollensteiner won three events Friday as the Flathead boys downed Great Falls 81-64 in a track and field dual at Legends Stadium. The Braves also got wins from Jacob Johnson in the 800, Kasen Kastner in the 3,200 and Orion Sullivan, a sophomore, in the javelin.   

Alivia Rinehart swept the hurdles for Flathead and helped the Bravettes sweep the relays. Rinehart’s time of 14.74 in the 100 hurdles is far and away the best in the state and her time of 48.33 in the 300s is second in AA. 

Glacier’s boys won 14 of 17 events and the girls won 12 of 17 at a track and field dual with Great Falls CMR held Friday at Memorial Stadium. Ethan Anderson had another banner day for the boys: He won the 200 in a personal-record 23.03 seconds and took the 110-meter hurdles in 15.09.  

Mark Ahner and Spencer Hodge also won twice: Ahner won the 300 hurdles and high jump, and Hodge took the 100 meters and long jump. Dylan Smith had a top mark for the Pack, throwing 159 feet, 11 inches to win the discus. 

The meet, which wasn’t scored, also saw Glacier’s girls get wins from Breanna Barnes in the 100 meters and pole vault and both relays. Barnes is tied for the top vault in AA and eight more Wolfpack girls added victories in their events. 

Jack Phelps picked up big points in the sprints — and won the 200 in a Class A-leading 22.84 seconds Friday — Isak Soyland and Lane Voermans led a push in the field events that helped Columbia Falls outpoint defending state champion Corvallis 82-72 for the boys team title at the Hamilton Invitational.  

Track meets have a ton of events so if you want to see full results, head on over to athletic.net to catch up on anything I might have missed. 

That is going to wrap up this week’s episode of Keeping Score presented by Corwin Motors. We will be back next week to highlight more spring sports for you, and I will see you all then, take care.  

 Follow our Keeping Score podcast for weekly updates on high school sports and our Poster Player of the Week. Watch and Subscribe on the Daily Inter Lake You Tube channel or your favorite podcast app.