Playing the game the right way and getting better at it every day, a credo any team could live by.

Playing softball the right way every day, the very young Thompson Falls Blue Hawks hosted highly regarded Western B-C foe MAC (Mission-Arlee-Charlo) at Pirk’s Place Friday. Coach Jared Koskela’s Hawks may have lost the hard-fought game 8-3 but you won’t hear him complaining about the effort put forth by his players. Or the result.

“It was a good game, we made them work for it,” Koskela said. "One of our captains, Annalise Fairbank (a senior) told the team during our meeting afterwards that this was the closest a team that she has played on here has played MAC. That means something, we’re thinking that yeah, maybe we can play with these guys.”

Although the thought might be nice, the Hawks will have to translate it back into action this week after completing the first half of conference play. “Now we run the gauntlet,” he said, “(after Plains Monday, results were not available at press time) we have gone through the first half, now’s the time to get serious.”

The run through the Western B-C gauntlet Koskela speaks of begins with the Troy Trojans at Pirk’s Place in Thompson Falls Thursday and continues with the Eureka Lions in Lincoln County Friday this week. The goal is to finish high enough in the regular season standings to avoid the dreaded Western B-C play-in game, a one-off situation all teams hope to avoid.

For being the underdog to the Bulldogs, the Hawks didn’t play that way, they played to win. A four-run first inning by MAC gave the Bulldogs the lead to stay, but the runs didn’t come easily after that against Hawk eighth grader Kaydence Pavlik, who effectively pitched the entire game for the Hawks, allowing only four more runs in the six innings thereafter.

Pavlik walked only three and scattered 13 MAC hits over the eight innings.

On the offensive side of things, the Hawks were once again led by Noxon eighth grader Kaylie Mercer who rapped out two hits, including a double and drove in two runs. Addie Traver went two for three with a double and a run scored, Audrey Fairbank two for

four with a run, Annalise Fairbank one for four with a run, and Angela Koskela hit a sacrifice bunt in the second inning.

Hawk catcher Nevaeh Christensen laced out two base hits, Marley Robinson hit a double against MAC and Kassidy Dana added the Hawks’ other base hit on the day against the quality pitching of Mission’s Jada Domebo.

“We’re getting better at the plate the more we see good pitchers like Domebo,” Koskela said. "We have one more game with MAC, we’ll see how that one goes.”

Alicia Steele led MAC going three for four with a home run (a three-run blast in the first inning) and a double, driving in five runs for the Bulldogs. GG Hawk was three for four with two runs scored and Maizey McDonald two for with two RBI and two runs scored.