Twins win one, drop two in opening series

The Glacier Twins got a tough start to their shortened season over the weekend.

The Twins faced off against the Kalispell Lakers AA squad for a trio of games on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, dropping two but winning one.

They faced adversity out the gate, falling 14-6 in their Saturday opener.

Both teams had a slow start in that game, with neither squad scoring a single run until the fifth inning, after which they were tied 1-1.

The Lakers then exploded for six runs in the next inning to up the lead to 7-2, and followed that up with seven more scores in the seventh and eighth innings to pull away.

Kalispell topped the Twins in hits by a 10-7 margin. Zach Veneman racked up five strikeouts in five innings on the mound for the Twins.

The team got back at it on Sunday, however, blowing away the Lakers 9-3.

The Twins got at it right out of the gate, scoring three runs in the first and another two in the second to jump out to a 5-1 lead by the top of the third and a 7-1 lead by the fifth inning.

Glacier’s Cade Morgan led the team with two hits while Stevyn Andrachick notched four strikeouts in five innings on the mound.

Then on Monday, they closed out the series with a 12-3 loss on the road.

Down 6-2 after one inning, the Twins would only score one more run in the second before the Lakers held them at bay for the rest of the game, racking up six more of their own runs along the way.

Morgan again led the team with a pair of hits, while he and Austin Andrachick racked up a RBI each.

Twins head coach Kevin Slaybaugh said he saw some good stuff over the weekend, but his team is young and has space to grow.

“We’re just young and not baseball tough yet. There were some flashes of some great stuff, but we just need to keep working. We can get there. I think we’re going to be a team to contend with,” Slaybaugh said.

The biggest friction points for his team right now is the pitching rotation, Slaybaugh added, and once that’s figured out he expects play to tighten up.

Even with the 1-2 start, he said he sees a lot of positives in the way the team played.

“There was just as much positive as there was negative. There were places where we really hit the ball well. Our pitching is spotty, but when it was good, it was really good. Defensively I saw some great things too,” he said.

Glacier has a pair of home outings this week, hosting Libby on Wednesday at 3 p.m. and the Mission Valley Mariners at 4 p.m. on Friday.

Slaybaugh said he’s expecting solid matchups with both teams, and he thinks they can both be strong contenders this year.

“I’m looking for both those teams to be top contenders in our district, so it’ll be a good way to measure ourselves against a couple of the top teams in the district and maybe in the state,” he said.