Columbia Falls softball coach Rick Lawrence was admittedly a little worried when the season first started. The Wildkats were in a 1-5 slump and for the first time ever, Columbia Falls was hosting the state A softball tournament.

It would be a tough pill to swallow if the Kats didn’t make it.

“I was a little nervous,” Lawrence said.

But the team’s young pitchers are throwing strikes and the bats have come alive as the Kats righted the proverbial ship.  The Kats finished the season at 16-6 overall and 8-2 in conference play, including dramatic wins over Polson and Ronan at the end of the season.

They’ll enter the state softball tournament as the second seed in Northwest A, opening the tourney Thursday against the No. 3 seed from the Southwest at 11 a.m.

If they win that game they’ll play Polson at 3 p.m.

“We’ve come around pretty well,” Lawrence said. “We’ve been beating some really good teams.”

The tourney should be wide open. There’s not one favorite, but a half-dozen squads who could vie for the title. 

For example, the Kats lost by only one run against perennial powerhouse Frenchtown earlier this year.

The Wildkats are led this season by senior slugger Annika Reid, who is batting .567 with a .640 on base percentage. Onnikka Lawrence bats .476 with a .558 OBP, Tayler Lingle, .492 with a .566 OBP and Addy Bowler bats .476 with a .558 OBP.

The OBP is key, Lawrence notes, because the girls all have speed and just getting on first often leads to a runner in scoring position.

“Once we get on base we can manufacture runs,” Lawrence said.

Junior catcher Bella Mann, who will follow in her older sister Sydney’s footsteps and play for Nicholls State after graduation, has been doing a great job behind the plate with the team’s young pitchers, Ella Branstetter and Katie Bulawsky.

Branstetter is just a freshman and Bulawsky hasn’t pitched more than 20 innings as a sophomore before the season started, Lawrence noted.

“(Mann) calms them down when they get stressed,” Lawrence said.

Lawrence is pleased with the way the team has turned things around.

“I’m proud of the girls,” he said. “They stepped up when they needed to.”