DILLON – With their runner up finish in the class A southern district tournament the Dillon Cubs have stamped their first trip to the state tournament since 2011. A major accomplishment for a season that has had its fair share of ups and downs.
“You know it’s just the game of baseball,” says Cubs head coach Greg Fitzgerald. “Sometimes bounces fall your way and fortunately this past weekend things fell together and we get to take a trip to state.”
But what got this team through every bump in the road was their resilience. Sticking together through thick and thin with one goal in mind.
“You know we’ve battled through a lot of adversity we’ve had guys hurt this year who came back and done really well,” said Cubs pitcher Jace Fitzgerald. “And we’ve just stuck to the grind. You win some games you lose some games, we’re finally peaking at the right time.”
“We went through a stretch where we didn’t play good baseball,” Greg added. “We weren’t hitting the ball real well, walked a lot of guys, and I think the kids took it to task. You know our older kids stepped up and did what they needed to do to make sure we were successful at the end of the season.”
Bringing home a state title to Dillon would add to an already impressive year of sports for the small town in Southwest Montana. But they guys know what needs to be done in order to bring home the hardware.
“You know we have to stay focused, we have to limit our errors we have to put good at-bats together and string some quality hits together,” says Jace.
Regardless of the outcome this weekend in Florence, a blueprint has been laid out for future Cubs to make their mark.
“Hopefully the success of this team you know brings the little leaguers along and out to the park, and has an opportunity to succeed at a higher level,” coach Fitzgerald adds.
“Yea I think we only lose two guys next year so hopefully we’ll still have that good nucleus of quality players coming up juniors, seniors, sophomores,” Jace adds. “So hopefully we get more into the program and more people want to play baseball because of our success.”
