MISSOULA – The Western AA softball tournament slogged through a wet first round at the Fort Missoula fields on Friday. But they couldn’t continue any more. Play was suspended until Saturday.
Five-seed Missoula Hellgate shocked four-seed Helena 13-9 in the first round. Three-seed Helena Capital dominated six-seed Kalispell Flathead, 12-2. And two-seed Missoula Sentinel crushed crosstown rival and seven-seed Missoula Big Sky, 24-5.
The divisional tournament will continue at 11 a.m. Saturday morning. Top-seed Kalispell Glacier will take on Hellgate, and Capital will battle Sentinel in the semifinals. Big Sky and Flathead collide in a loser-out contest.
At 1 p.m., Helena will meet the loser of the Hellgate-Glacier game. The Flathead-Big Sky winner will take on the Capital-Sentinel loser. The winners of those two games will advance to state, while the losers’ seasons come to an end.
The championship and third-place games are scheduled for 3 p.m.
The top four teams at the Western AA advance to the State AA tournament, which begins next Thursday in Butte.
