HELENA – Who will play the Helena Senators in the 2024 Class AA Montana/Alberta American Legion Baseball State Championship Game?
That’s what Saturday’s action at Kindrick Legion Field determines.
No. 2 Helena Senators 4, No. 1 Billings Scarlets 3
It would’ve felt right any other way. A one-run decision, the tournament’s seventh, to set the 2024 Class AA championship.
When Nolan Berkram’s bases-loaded line drive pounded off the left field wall in the seventh, Helena’s faithful packed into Kindrick Legion Field sighed relief.
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Bohden Bahnmiller, on the mound, did the same. A few feet higher and Billings would’ve walked its way into another do-or-die game Sunday.
Instead, Bahnmiller retired three of the next four Scarlets, the final one with the game’s tying run 90 feet away, to preserve the Senators’ third tournament victory by the slimmest of margins.
“Through the roof,” Bahnmiller said of his seventh-inning nerves. “I had to take a second to clear my head. God, my mind was running. That last out felt so good.”
Billings (58-12) nearly replicated Friday’s loser-out heroics against Kalispell.
Starting pitcher Jakob Wilcox took a skipping liner off the face in the second inning, but refused to exit. Wilcox faced the minimum until Helena’s Carter Perlinski sent a ball over the right field fence to begin the seventh.
Four consecutive Scarlets batters reached to open the seventh, but the big hit was missing.
A season meant to end the Scarlets’ eight-year title drought shifts to the Northwest Regionals, which Billings Post 4 hosts, beginning on Wednesday.
“We don’t give up,” Scarlets head coach Adam Hust said. “We get to the right guys in the lineup and we’ve got a chance. The kids battle. They’re a good group and they’ve done it all year.
“Obviously we’ve been playing from behind this whole tournament and we put ourselves behind in one inning today. Kids just play differently from behind than they do ahead. We’re gonna be fine. We’ve got some really good baseball we’re gonna play this week.”
No. 3 Missoula Mavericks 7, No. 4 Billings Royals 2
Brennan Labbe pumped his arm and unleashed a scream. Missoula will play on Sunday.
After pitching in only one conference game during the regular-season, the southpaw tossed a complete game, striking out six, and allowing just one earned run on Saturday.
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Email Daniel Shepard at daniel.shepard@406mtsports.com and find him on Twitter/X @IR_DanielS.
