The Columbia Falls baseball team had a tough go last week against Whitefish at home, losing 10-2.

The Bulldogs put four on the board in the second inning and never looked back in the May 7 contest.

Jett Pitts took the loss for the Wildcats, giving up six hits and five runs over three innings of work. Pitts only gave up one earned run, though.

Tayvin Beach pitched four innings of relief, but gave up seven hits and five runs over four. The defense didn’t help, as the Cats committed three errors in the loss.

The Cats are now 11-4 after dropping Browning at home Monday, 25-4.

They faced Flathead at home Tuesday and came back to win 10-9. Nico Young stepped in with two outs in the seventh and hit a hard grounder to right that sent Caden Fisher home from second to end the game. 

But the big game is Thursday on the road against Polson. They have to win that game to stay in the hunt for the postseason and potentially win a conference title, head coach Chad Green said.

With the Whitefish loss they have three conference losses, while Bigfork (7-2, 9-3) only has two. They need Whitefish and Bigfork to lose and they have to win out to take the conference.

Still, if they win out they’d almost assuredly have a play-in game. They want to be the second seed, so they host that game.

They have the tiebreak advantage over Bigfork, but Whitefish has the tiebreak over them. The long and short is there are five teams vying for three spots to get to the state tourney in Polson May 28-30 and it will all hash out in the next couple of weeks.

After the Polson game Thursday, they host Frenchtown Friday and Hamilton Saturday for the Sapa-Johnsrud tourney. Those are the top two teams in the south.