BOZEMAN — After back to back AA state baseball championships, the Bozeman Bucks currently sit at under .500 for the 2021 season. They’re hoping to find a spark at the Treasure State Showdown tournament this weekend in order to turn their season around.
“We can’t play for the last two years," said pitcher Brady Higgs. "This is a separate year. Every year comes with its own ups and downs. We got to look forward to this year and not dwell on the past or look at the ups of the past and do what we got to do this year."
This weekend at the tournament which is hosted by both the Belgrade Bandits and Bozeman, they will be hosting teams from a few different states, including California.
“The level of play on the field is going to be pretty high," Bucks head coach Garrett Schultz said. "I know our opponents are going to bring it. Our guys are up for it. We’re kind of at a low point in our season right now. Haven’t played well for a couple of weeks. We’re hoping to use this tournament as something fun, stay loose and try to build -- build into July.”
Losing their ace Hunter Williams who is now pitching at Whitworth College has been a huge blow for the Bucks.
“We don’t have a ton of depth on the mound," said Schultz. "Teams know that about us. We do go out and score runs and typically play defense but lately we don’t close teams out.”
A few games under .500 the Bucks are in uncharted territory. They’ve never been at a point like this under head coach Garrett Schultz.
“We got nine guys on this team that know how to play baseball, know how to play baseball well, but we just got to get back to our game and not try and go out and do too much," said Higgs who was a part of the the championship teams and is in his last year of playing legion ball. "We don’t have the flash of the last couple years, so we got to get the few fundamentals down we know how to do.”
Although they’re in a slump, the team isn’t shying away from competition and know it’s in their hands to change the destiny of this team in order to try for a 3-peat.
“We need some really good practices and we need to get a spark going this weekend and we’ll be on track,” Schultz said.
