BUTTE — Thursday’s fantastic start gave away to Friday frustration for the Glacier baseball team, which bowed out of the State AA tournament with losses to Missoula Sentinel and the host Butte Bulldogs.
Sentinel ate up a 6-0 deficit with a six-run fifth inning, then scored nine the next inning in a 15-8 win in the semifinals.
That put the Pack in the loser’s bracket, and Butte combined nine hits with 11 walks and four hit batters to take a 14-4 victory.
Glacier, which opened the tournament with a 12-1 win over CMR, ended their first baseball season 14-8.
Sentinel 15, Glacier 8
Brady Buckmaster went 3-for-4 for the Wolfpack, hitting an RBI double in the third inning and a triple in the seventh.
Falon Clark’s two-run single put Glacier ahead 4-0 in the third, and Max Weber’s two-run double in the fifth made it 6-0.
To that point Kaeden Kahler had thrown four spotless innings for Glacier, but Sentinel got to him and reliever Wyatt Sharp in the fifth.
A Kaden Thennis triple drove in the Spartans’ first run, and they kept coming: with two out they got a two-run single from Keaton Elliott to close to 6-3; two Glacier errors let in three more runs and it was tied.
In the sixth two hit batters, an RBI single by Stellan Ridley and three straight walks had Sentinel in front for good, 9-7. A two-out, two run triple by Thennis made it 14-7.
Buckmaster tripled and scored on Bridger Sunde’s two-out single in the seventh for Glacier.
The Spartans (16-8) then beat Gallatin 6-3 in the championship.
Butte 14, Glacier 4
Glacier led this one as well, though just briefly — Buckmaster doubled in Ryne Gillette for a 1-0 lead in the first.
Butte (10-10) responded with eight runs in the second, combining four singles with four walks and a hit batter. Four Wolfpack pitchers walked a total of 11 Bulldogs and hit four. Butte had nine hits, with Kodye Kjersten and Tegan Duffy getting two each. Each player drove in three runs.
Glacier’s three-run fifth inning had little fireworks as well. Buckmaster drew a bases-loaded walk and Sunde and Eli Beck added RBI grounders.
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