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Another year older and another year wiser, the still-young Thompson Falls softball team looks to be much more competitive this spring.

Finally finding their field after late-winter storms buried it in snow, the 15-strong Lady Hawks have been busy practicing what softball they can where they can and are aiming to begin regular season play at Florence April 6.

The Hawks, under then first-year coach Jared Koskela, struggled with numbers and experience last spring, but look to be much more competitive this season, Koskela said.

“We are in a lot better shape now than we were at this point last season,” Koskela said. “We expect to be much more competitive this year as we have girls that played a lot and learned a lot last year.”

Recovering from an emergency gall bladder surgery he had just last week, Koskela said that most of the first part of Thompson Falls’ schedule has been wiped out by the wacky weather of western Montana. He foresees a doubleheader with the Florence Falcons, the defending State B-C champions, in Florence April 6 as the Lady Hawks’ first official games of the 2019 season.

The original season opener at Plains March 26 has been rescheduled for May 10. Thompson Falls’ home opener is a doubleheader with Deer Lodge Thursday, April 18.

Senior Melania Goodman, juniors Belle Cooper, Kelsey Frank, Brooke Bowlin, Izzy Helmer, Nichole Ngo and Amy Risser, sophomores Jody Detlaff, Riley Wilson, Faith Frields and Jenna Totzauer, and freshmen Dani Jo VanHuss, Abby Lane and Shayla Micklon are the current roster members for the Lady Hawk softball team.

The pitcher for the Hawks the majority of the time last spring, Frank was named to the second team of the Western B-C all-conference team following the season and was the only Falls player honored. Koskela says Frields and Detlaff will also see more pitching time this spring as he attempts to take some of that pressure off of Frank.

Koskela envisions another tough battle for the playoffs in the always tough Western B-C division in the making this spring. In addition to Florence, he sees Plains-Hot Springs and Mission-Arlee-Charlo (or MAC) as the teams with the most returning talent, but thinks Eureka, Loyola, Deer Lodge and Anaconda could also come up with contending lineups.

“Nothing is ever easy in the Western B-C,” he said, “and this year will be no different.”

Koskela said the warming trend in the weather has made a definite difference over the past several days.

“The field is playable, we have been practicing on it for several days now,” he said. “It looked pretty bleak a few weeks ago but the snow has really come off since then.”

Julie Detlaff is once again the assistant coach and Kyla Lyons (formerly Kyla Molzhon), who led the Lady Hawks to the 2010 State B-C championship, is a volunteer assistant for the Lady Hawks this season.