BUTTE — Missoula Sentinel's baseball team made history just after midnight on Saturday morning.
The Spartans — the Western AA's top seed — leaned on a strong start and solid finish to prevail over Eastern AA champion Bozeman Gallatin 6-3 in the first-ever State AA baseball championship at 3 Legends Stadium. The championship was moved to Friday evening to avoid a poor forecast on Saturday.
"That's one thing with our team is we have a great mentality," said junior Stellan Ridley. "I'm so proud of these young guys and the seniors leading us up to this and showing how discipline works. We just stayed with our level of the game and we performed."
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High school baseball in Montana is in its fourth season. Sentinel concluded its second season with the state title and on a seven-game win streak while the Raptors were in their first season. The Spartans wrap up their campaign at 15-8 while Gallatin finished at 18-2 and headed into the state tournament with just one loss to Bozeman .
The Spartans plated two runs in the top of the first inning and then led 3-2 after three innings. Gallatin then scored the tying run in the bottom of the fifth to even things up at 3-3 before Sentinel scored an unanswered run in the sixth and then two more in the seventh to help seal the victory.
"It's tough to find words right now, it's pretty emotional celebrating with the guys," said Sentinel head coach Brian Moser. "Just really happy for them. What an opportunity. They took advantage of it. Very proud of them, very appreciative of everything they've done for me and Sentinel High School."
The Spartans were led by a two-RBI, two-triple performance from Ridley and a pair of RBIs from Owen Dale. The Raptors got two RBIs from Harvey Kimmel and one RBI from Graysen Trenka.
Lukas Johannson earned the win, pitching the final 2.2 innings while allowing no runs, hits or walks and striking out four.
"We just told our guys that if they play the game the right way, if you throw strikes, if you play defense...you can give yourself a chance," said Moser. "It was a tall task but seeing them warm up before the game, they were loose, they were confident...I'd just say we've been on a pretty good roll these last three or four weeks."
