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Podcast No. 197: Craig Mills
Craig Mills was once known for a stupid human trick that he learned as a boy at the Highland View Golf Course.
He would balance one golf ball on top of another. He would hit the bottom ball, and the top ball would fly straight in the air. He would catch it with a toy basketball hoop on his head.
That trick was good enough for a trip to New York to perform on the “Late Show with David Letterman” in May of 2001.
While Craig performed the trick in front of Dave and the audience at the frigid Ed Sullivan Theater, he did not make the in the final show.
When it comes to umpiring baseball, though, it seems like Craig always makes the cut.
He has umpired some big tournaments in college baseball, and he was selected to work a handful of American Legion World Series tournaments.
Craig is a 1983 graduate of Butte Central. The son of Art and Carol Mills attended Emerson and Hillcrest before going to South Central Junior High and Butte Central.
He is a recently retired teacher in Burley, Idaho, where he taught political science, among other things. While he recently turned 59 and has overcome some serious health issues, Craig is still umpiring baseball games.
This past weekend, he was in Dillon to umpire the Maybelle Arthur Tournament. He also spent some quality time with some old classmates at the Knights of Columbus Hall.
Listen in to this podcast to hear him talk about his parents and his brother Brad, a member of the Eastern Oregon University Hall of Fame for his baseball achievements. Listen as he talks about playing Legion ball in Butte and getting into umpiring.
Listen as he talks about umpiring with his son Jake, also an accomplished college baseball player.
Listen in as he talks about his appearance on Letterman.
Today’s podcast is presented by Thriftway Super Stops. Download the TLC app and start saving today.
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An offer that could not be refused
When Don Peoples Sr. walked up to the table, I knew I was in trouble.
It was at the Butte Country Club in the spring of 2016. I was invited there for lunch by Jim Michelotti, who wanted to talk about his plans for the Butte Sports Hall of Fame moving forward. I brought my reporter’s notebook and a couple of pens. I also brought an excuse.
I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to do a story about his plans for the Hall of Fame, which somehow kept going after the untimely death of Pat Kearney in October of 2014, or if he wanted me to be part of those plans.
As I drove down from my Uptown home, I rehearsed my many reasons why I did not have time to be part of the selection committee. I was already putting in 20 hours a week working mornings at on KBOW. I was spending another 30 to 60 hours each week running ButteSports.com, which was owned by Butte Broadcasting.
No way did I have time to help with the Hall of Fame. There was just no way.
Mick Delaney, the recently-retired head football coach of the University of Montana, sat down at the table before Peoples, the former Butte-Silver Bow Chief Executive and one of the most important people in the history of our city.
When I was a young boy, I used to look at Mr. Peoples like he was John F. Kennedy. More than anything, he is a person I knew I could never turn down.
As it turns out, Michelotti, Delaney and Peoples didn’t want me to serve on the selection committee. Rather, they wanted me to run the whole dang thing.
They needed an executive director who had writing and researching skills, and they said I was their only choice.
Michelotti told me that I would find the time to do the work. He was one of the people instrumental in putting together the Hall of Fame class of 2015 less than a year after Kearney’s passing.
He told me he found time to do his work in the middle of the night. Oftentimes, he would find himself writing and researching at 2 a.m.
“That sounds great,” I thought. “But I have to get up at 5 a.m. to go to work. Then I work nights covering sporting events. I already don’t have enough time in the day. There is no way I can take on more.”
I didn’t say that, though. I just sat there and nodded my head.
“Take some time,” Peoples told me. “Talk to your wife and then make a decision.”
The decision, though, was already made. There is no way I could say no to those men. There is no way I could turn my back on the organization that was so important to my good friend Pat.
Plus, I knew if I said no, Pat Kearney was going to visit me in my sleep. Nobody wants that — especially when he’s mad.
In addition to being the man whose optimism and leadership led Butte out of the economic depression that was the 1980s, Peoples was a co-founder of the Hall of Fame. I knew that finding someone to try to fill the shoes of Kearney was very important to him.
He thought I was that guy, and now I figured I had better be.
So, with that, I became the executive director of the Butte Sports Hall of Fame. That came with the unbelievable pressure to keep the organization alive.
The Hall of Fame had been around nearly 30 years before I became involved with it. It actually started at a Butte-Silver Bow Christmas party in the upstairs room at the Butte Civic Center.
The party included one of those conversations that started with something like, “You know what would be a good idea?”
So many conversations start like that when celebrating and carrying on in a holiday bash, but those good ideas usually don’t’ seem as good in the light of day. This one, though, still seemed like a good idea to Peoples the next morning. So, he called Kearney and the ball got rolling.
The Butte Sports Hall of Fame inducted its first class on May 9, 1987. The first class was full of legends, including Sylvia (White) Blaine, Bob O’Billovich, “Jumpin’” Joe Kelly, Swede Dahlberg, Milt Popovich, Jim McCaughey, Jim Sweeney, Bob Hawke, Bill Cullen, Bob O’Malley, Judy (Morstein) Martz, Danny Hanley and Walter T. Scott.
The three teams inducted were the 1908 and 1927 Butte High football teams and the 1950 Butte Central basketball team.
The Hall of Fame inducted a class every odd year until 2019. In 2021, however, COVID made us push it back a year. Now, the ceremonies will take place every even year moving forward.
Later this month, we will induct the 19th class of the Butte Sports Hall of Fame. The individuals being inducted will be Matt Buckley, Dan Lean, Martha (Apostel) Lonner, Betty Merrifield, Wanda Jean (Matteson) Olson, Linda (Lyons) Paull, Erin Popovich, Ron Richards, John Rickman, Bruce Sayler, Steve “Coachie” Schulte, Kyle Smith and Don Tamietti.
Unfortunately, Lean, Olson and Tamietti passed away before they could walk down the red carpet of the Butte Sports immortals.
For the first time, we will have a Special Olympian award that will go to Coach Ronnie Counts.
The teams inducted will be the 1989 Butte High boys’ basketball team, the 1992 Butte High wrestling team, the 1996 Butte High softball team, the 1999 Butte Central softball team and the Kelvin Sampson-led Montana Tech men’s basketball teams of 1983, 1984 and 1985.
The Green Jacket Ceremony will be held Friday, July 19, and the induction banquet will take place on Saturday, July 20. Both events will take place at the Civic Center.
Two years ago, we moved to the Maroon Activities Center because Indiana Jones booted us out of the Civic Center during the filming of the TV series “1923.”
Or maybe that was Han Solo. I always get those two mixed up.
On Friday before the Green Jacket Ceremony, we will hold a golf scramble on the Par 3 course at the Highland View Golf Course. Anyone can show up and play in the 1 p.m. scramble, and Leskovar Honda is sponsoring a hole-in-once contest for a car.
This year will mark the fourth induction ceremony since I realized I had no choice but to try to be the guy to fill the shoes of Pat Kearney. It hasn’t been easy, but it was a lot of fun.
And Mr. Michelotti was right. I often found myself up at 2 a.m. doing some writing and research. But most of that came after I gave up the morning radio shift following the 2017 induction.
I might be a little biased, but I think we did a pretty good job of selecting the right Butte sports legends to carry on the legacy of the Hall.
I think Pat Kearney would agree because so far, he has not visited me in my sleep.
— Bill Foley can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
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Bobcats set free kids’ clinic in Butte
The Montana State Bobcats will hold a free kids’ football clinic in Butte on Tuesday, July 16 at Naranche Stadium.
The camp, which will from from 2 to 3:30 p.m., is for kids entering kindergarten through sixth grade. The clinic will be put on by the players and coaches from MSU.
Also, the Bobcat Collective will host a meet and greet with the bobcats later that day at the Rib and Chop House. That event will run from 4 to 6 p.m., and the cost is $25 per person. Bobcat Collective members will be admitted for free.
Go to bobcatcollective.com to RSVP for the kids or buy tickets for the meet and greet.
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Leskovar Honda Athletes of the Week: Paxton McEwen, Copper City Stars
This week’s Leskovar Honda Athlete of the Week honors go to Paxton McEwen and two All-Star teams from the Copper City Softball Little League.
McEwen plays for the Elks team in the Northwest Little League, and he takes the boys’ honor even though he is new to his sport. Coming from an athletic family of wrestlers, Paxton decided to give baseball a try this season.
The season went well as Paxton made the Northwest All-Star team. Coach Mike Parent says Paxton, who plays pitcher and catcher, is an outstanding baser runner who somehow scores every time he reaches base.
The Copper City 8-10 All-Stars and 10-12 All-Stars share the girls’ honor after strong performances during the Montana District 2 Little League tournament at the Longfellow Complex in Butte.
The older All-Star team went 2-2 in the tournament, taking second place. They fell to Garden City Softball from Missoula in the championship.
The team is made up of Ryan Olson, Ryenne Hardy, Mila Carriger, Regan Warren, Mya McGree, Tenley Osborne, Luci Fantini, Taylor Regan, Keelie Schad, Kessler Svejkovsky, Jordynn Giop, and Savannah Stosich. Their coaches are Josh Schad, Zach Osborne and Joe Warren.
The younger team won the District title, going 4-0. They beat the Westside All-Stars from Great Falls 12-6 in the title game.
Team members are Anna Yates, Josie Foley, Aria Sherrill, Bentli Petritz, Braelynn Schwartzmiller, Brixley Schelin, Caelyn Comfort, Kaitlyn Kachmarik, Kyla McEwen, Myla Swanson, Parker Gilbreath, Oakley Stajcar and Taylor Benski. The coaches are Jenny McEwen, Melissa Swanson and Kristen Grote.
For the second year, Leskovar Honda, home of the 20-year, 200,000-mile warranty, is teaming up with the ButteCast to honor the finest student-athletes from the Mining City in an effort to encourage more children to get up, get out and try all kinds of sports and activities.
Anna Yates, Aria Sherrill, Bentli Petritz, Braelynn Schwartzmiller, Brixley Schelin, Caelyn Comfort, Copper City Softball, Joe Warren, Jordynn Giop, Josie Foley, Kaitlyn Kachmarik, Keelie Schad, Kessler Svejkovsky, Kristen Grote, Kyla McEwen, Leskovar Honda, Luci Fantini, Melissa Swanson, Mike Parent, Mila Carriger, Myla Swanson, Oakley Stajcar, osh Schad, Parker Gilbreath, Paxton McEwen, Regan Warren, Ryan Olson, Ryenne Hardy, Savannah Stosich, Taylor Benski, Taylor Regan, Tenley Osborne, Zach Osborne -
Copper City Stars win district title
The Copper City All-Star softball team captured the 9-10 Montana Little League District 2 championship Wednesday night at the Longfellow Softball Complex.
The Butte girls made it look easy, too. In going 4-0 in the tournament, the Copper City All-Stars outscored their opponents by a combined score of 54-16.
That includes a 12-6 win over the Westside All-Stars from Great Falls. Next up, the Butte girls will play in the State tournament, which is July 18-21 in Missoula.
Team members are Anna Yates, Josie Foley, Aria Sherrill, Bentli Petritz, Braelynn Schwartzmiller, Brixley Schelin, Caelyn Comfort, Kaitlyn Kachmarik, Kyla McEwen, Myla Swanson, Parker Gilbreath, Oakley Stajcar and Taylor Benski.
The coaches are Jenny McEwen, Melissa Swanson and Kristen Grote.
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Podcast No. 196: KC honors Colt, Bulldogs from 1967, 1968
With help from Jim Michelotti, Bernie Boyle turned the Knights of Columbus Hall into an incredible sports museum years ago.
The main floor, the weight room, gym are all filled with team and individual photos. It would take a week to truly examine each of the photos. Yesterday, the KC museum got a whole lot better during an afternoon celebration in front of a packed house.
A couple of signs were added to the wall of main hall to honor some outstanding Butte athletes. The first is a sign recognizing Butte High’s back-to-back Class AA State championship football teams from 1967 and 1968.
Many of the teammates — or the sons and daughters of players and coaches — were there to celebrate.
Then came a surprise as Bernie unveiled a sign to honor the career of Colt Anderson. Colt, of course, played nine seasons in the National Football League. That followed a legendary career playing for the Butte High Bulldogs and Montana Grizzlies.
He was recently hired as the special teams coordinator of the Tennessee Titans.
Colt, who is in town for his Dream Big Event this week, was tricked into attending. He was told his father, Mike, was being honored for his induction into the Montana Officials Association Hall of Fame.
Colt became emotional when he learned that he was the man of the hour. He praised his parents as well as his brothers and sister.
Listen into this podcast to hear Bernie Boyle introduce the back-to-back champion Bulldogs. After Bernie, former Bulldogs Paul Cutler, Marty Judd and Glen Welch took the mic for a few words.
Then Mike Anderson introduced his son as the sign was unveiled.
Following the ceremony, I sat down to talk with Welch and Judd. Then I talked to the Cutler brothers, Al and Paul.
Finally, listen in as a conversation with Anderson received a surprise guest as Colt’s Butte High coach Greg Salo sat down. Salo was also a part of those Bulldog championship teams from yesteryear.
Today’s podcast is brought to you by Casagranda’s Steakhouse. Eat where the locals eat.
Glen Welch, left, and Marty Judd 
Al Culter, left, and his brother Paul 
Colt Anderson 
Greg Salo 
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British Petroleum decision shows that public participation can work
Now it’s time to step up fight for Centerville
The “Dirty Dirt Train” has been derailed, and it was the public who did the dirty work.
Our children and grandchildren will be the winners.
Josh Bryson of British Petroleum/Atlantic Richfield announced Tuesday that the company now intends to remove all on-site contaminated material when it begins cleanup under the Consent Decree along the Silver Bow Creek corridor.
This apparently means that the Consent Decree cleanup will be done to the standard of the Parrot Tailings cleanup, and that is very good news. There will be no “gray fill” or “dirty dirt” left behind for future contamination.
This news comes no thanks to our local government. In fact, in comes despite the work of Butte-Silver Bow and the chief executive.
This news also proves that public participation in important decisions like this can be a good thing. While the government pushed back and did not listen to the public, it is obvious that British Petroleum and Atlantic Richfield certainly did.
Finally. Thankfully.
It should also reinforce residents of Centerville that we can stand up and fight back our chief executive’s plans to dump toxic waste near homes on the Butte Hill.
The “Dirty Dirt Train” has been taken down. Now it is time to derail the toxic plan that would make Butte neighborhoods unsafe for generations to come.
We owe this victory to a handful of environmental watchdogs who decided to take on this important fight. When the people learned what was coming, those watchdogs had an army of supporters behind them.
With that support, they were able to overcome the secret decision making that was concocted behind closed. They were able to shed some light on what our local government was deliberately trying to keep in the dark.
That secrecy is what has held back the cleanup process for so long. It was that secrecy that put the financial concerns of a rich foreign company over the health and safety of the people of Southwestern Montana.
The first secret plan that we beat back was to dump toxic waste near Copper Mountain Park and by homes in the Timber Butte neighborhood.
The second secret plan was to dump the same waste instead in the Kelley Mine yard, including the historic Dublin Gulch and near homes in Centerville and Corktown.
With some help from my curious dad, who walks the trails by the Mountain Con Mine nearly every day, I was able to expose that secret Dublin Gulch plan late last summer. That led to some public outrage, which insisted on dumping the more than 800,000 cubic yards of toxic waste into the Berkeley Pit.
We were first told by BP/ARCO and our chief executive that the Pit was not an option. We maintained that it should be to the point that suddenly they thought it was a good idea.
All of the waste apparently cannot be dumped into the Pit, so the plan from our chief executive is still to dump the worst of the waste a chip shot away from homes.
Think about that. The waste is too toxic for the Berkeley Pit, but the chief executive says it is OK to bury it under 18 inches of dirt near homes and a park.
At a recent meeting of the Butte-Silver Bow Council of Commissioners, one commissioner who is a member of the largely secret repository siting committee put together by the chief executive, said that the waste cannot leave Silver Bow County.
Oh? Tell that to the people of Missoula.
When they Superfund cleanup of the Milltown Dam was going on years ago, the residents of Missoula County did not have to fight to keep the waste away from their neighborhoods. Instead, they put it on train cars and shipped it away to the Opportunity Ponds in Anaconda-Deer Lodge County.
That toxic waste crossed four county lines on the way to its resting place.
Some waste from Anaconda and Butte has also been dumped at the ARCO-owned Opportunity Ponds over the years.
But our chief executive insists on keeping the Superfund waste close by so it can haunt Butte citizens for the rest of eternity.
Now it appears we beat British Petroleum/ARCO back to where they should have been in the first place. Now, they are back to where they would have been had our local government not done all of its negotiating in secret since the signing of the Consent Decree in 2020.
When I am chief executive of Butte-Silver Bow, any and all meetings will be open because I trust the members of the public to participate in these important decisions that impact all of us.
It appears the center of Butte will get the cleanup the people have been promised.
Now more than ever, we have to keep fighting so the people on the Butte Hill get the environmental justice they deserve, too.
— Bill Foley, who is running to be the next chief executive of Butte-Silver Bow, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. For more on his candidacy, visit foleyforbutte.com.
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Delaney’s pink works for Magic
Apparently, it was the Sunday pink uniforms that did the trick.
While wearing pink to honor the late Delaney Doherty, Coach McCaul McCarthy’s Mining City Magic softball team made an improbable championship run in the 14U division at a tournament in Helena.
McCarthy, a former standout softball and basketball player at Butte High, is a cousin of Doherty, a Manhattan softball star who was killed in an automobile accident last summer. Her team wears pink jerseys and socks each Sunday in honor of Delaney. The players also wear a memory logo on theirs sleeves.
This Sunday, McCarthy’s Magic team entered Sunday’s tournament play seeded sixth. Playing for Delaney, they battled their way through three long and hot games to win the championship. The Butte girls beat No. 1-seeded Bozeman 11-7 to cap the championship run.
Players on the team are Taylor Regan, Ellie Graham, Regan Warren, Lilly Sandoval, Brea Henderson, Cliry Conway, Rigby Bauer, Jordyn Giop, Karlee Jeffrey, Bella Schrapps, Joee Regan and Preslee Johnson.
Shane McCarthy is the co-head coach with McCaul. Joe Warren and Brent Giop are the assistants.
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Once again, Class AA administrators show that they don’t get it
The three days spanning Feb. 29 through March 2 should have been highly embarrassing for the administrators from Montana’s Class AA high schools.
They should have been ashamed to show their faces after that. However, they apparently do not feel the appropriate shame.
Feb. 29 through March 2 was the weekend of the Western AA and Eastern AA Divisional basketball tournaments, and the Class AA totally got outclassed by the Class A.
That was middle of three straight weekends of basketball tournaments at the Butte Civic Center. It started with the Western A Divisional. Next was the Western AA Divisional, which was followed by the Class A State to tournament.
Two of the tournaments were packed with excitement from the opening whistle on Thursday morning until the final buzzer on Saturday night. The other one was the Class AA tournament, and it was largely a snoozefest.
The Class A tournaments had an electric atmosphere. Most of the schools brought their bands and cheerleaders, and they had great student sections.
Each game featured a halftime show to entertain the crowd.
At the Class AA tournament, the halftime performance was watching the old guys sweep the floor and counting how many people peppered them with jokes about not being as fast as Tate Hakala.
Oh, the basketball was good, and the atmosphere was fun when Butte High played. Other than that, though, all we had was stands slightly filled with parents.
It really felt more like a travel tournament than a high school event.
This, of course, is 100 percent the fault of the Class AA administrators. They purposely sabotaged the divisional tournaments.
On the surface, that might sound like a ridiculous accusation. Hear me out, though.
The Class AA finally agreed to go back to divisional tournaments for the first time since 1990 following the 2017-18 season. Chuck Merrifield, Butte High’s activities director, finally wore his colleges down.
For years, Merrifield had been pushing to move back to divisional tournaments because he is the rarest of breeds of Class AA administrators. He actually gets what sports are all about.
Chuck knew that the Class AA athletes were getting the shaft for nearly 30 years. He knew that some schools went more than a decade without playing in a tournament at all.
Year after year, Chuck brought up divisional tournaments. Year after year, they shut him down.
He did not change his argument as he brought up the cause each year. Apparently, he just wore them down and got them to bring back divisional tournaments at the end of the 2017-18 season.
But the rest of the administrators made sure it was never done right.
First, they implemented a rule that the tournaments could not be played in arenas — like the Four Seasons in Great Falls, the Adams Center in Missoula, the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse in Bozeman, the Metra in Billings or the Butte Civic Center.
Rather, they had to be played in smaller high school gyms or college gyms.
The Eastern AA Divisional made its debut in Butte in 2018. The boys played at the Richardson Gym at Butte High, and the girls played at Montana Tech. In several instances, the boys and girls from the same school were playing at the same time in gyms across town.
This year’s Western AA Divisional at the Civic Center was the only one of the divisional tournaments in seven years to be played in an arena. The Eastern AA was played at MSU-Billings, while a Class B divisional was played at the Metra.
Oh, and they made a rule where only the home teams could have a band and cheerleaders at the tournaments. They didn’t realize that the tournaments are about all the school’s students. Or, more likely, they don’t care.
“They did everything in their power to make it half-assed and cheap,” said Butte High graduate Luke Powers, who recently resigned as head coach after four years leading the boys’ team in Belgrade.
As bad as they tried to make the tournament experience, at least the boys and girls had a fighting chance on the court. Until now.
Recently, the shortsighted Class AA administrators decided to scrap divisionals for basketball and volleyball. They decided to reduce the number of teams in the State softball tournament from 12 to eight.
Powers was the coach of the Butte High boys’ basketball team from 2015-16 through 2018-19, and he helped Merrifield fight for divisional tournaments. He absolutely despises this decision. He said it was the final straw in his decision to step away from coaching.
“To me, it’s not about the kids,” Powers said. “It’s about going through the motions to get it over with. It’s a terrible decision, and it’s bad for kids.”
Powers isn’t the only coach who wanted to keep divisional tournaments. He said when the girls’ and boys’ coaches of the 16 Class AA schools were given the choice to get rid of the tournaments, they voted 32-0 in favor of keeping them.
Yes, 32-0. That is a vote that even Rudy Giuliani could get behind. Not the Class AA administrators, though.
They voted to go against the coaches and against the student-athletes. Merrifield was the only AD to vote to keep the tournaments. Again, because he gets it.
The No. 1 reason these administrators give for the decision is money.
Yes, money is tight. It is a shame that some school districts are cutting back on teachers as mill levies fail around the state.
Still, it is rich to hear administrators with six-figure salaries use money as a reason to take something away from student-athletes. With a little bit of work, those administrators could probably come up with enough sponsorship money to pay for the tournaments in a week or less.
So, excuse me for not buying the money excuse. Plus, money does not seem to be an obstacle for the Class A, B or C.
“That’s a poor excuse from people who don’t want to deal with that weekend,” Powers said of the money justification. “The only administrator who really wanted to work at that and make it a great experience is Chuck.”
More than anything, the divisional tournaments give all the teams a fighting chance, and that is what sports is all about.
Next year, the bottom four teams in the Class AA won’t even get a chance to play in a playoff game. Really, what the heck are we doing here?
“You want a chance,” said Powers, whose No. 8 seeded Panthers beat No. 1 seed Bozeman in the Eastern AA Divisional a couple of years ago. “You want to a chance to improve every year because you aren’t always blessed with talent. That’s motivating.
“To take away that chance to be a Cinderella is just absurd. The system that we got rid of because it was (bad) is coming back, but we made it (worse).”
Like with basketball and volleyball, the reason they give us to cut back in softball is money. But we know better. We know they just want to get it over with.
While players, coaches and fans look forward to the postseason, the Class AA administrators apparently view it like an appointment for a root canal.
These are, after all, the same people who used class time as an excuse for avoiding divisional tournaments all these years. Then, they scheduled a large portion of the basketball games for Tuesday and Thursday nights so they can have weekends off.
When the divisional tournaments came back in 2018, the administrators dropped the regular-season from 20 to 18 games. Now that they dropped the divisionals, they are only adding one more game back to the season.
So, while they are adding to football and wrestling, they are taking away from basketball, volleyball and softball.
It sure sounds like we need some kind of class-action lawsuit on behalf of the Class AA student-athletes. Could a sports-minded lawyer please pick up the white courtesy phone?
That Class AA administrators are hurting the games, and they are limiting scholarship opportunities for the student-athletes. So, a lawsuit might be the only way we can get their attention.
As last Feb. 29 through March 2 clearly shows, embarrassment just will not work on these people.
— Bill Foley, who is not a lawyer, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
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Leskovar Honda Athletes of the Week: Noah Powers, Elite Electrical players
This week’s Leskovar Honda Athletes of the Week honors go to Butte Motormen player Noah Powers and the players on the 11-12 division champion Elite Electrical team in the Copper City Softball Little League.
Powers takes home the boys’ honor after helping the Motormen, a Butte American Legion Baseball team, win the Dillon wooden bat tournament this past weekend. He led the team with a dominant pitching performance and some clutch hitting.
In the lineup for three of the four games, Powers went 5 for 8 with four RBIs. He also mowed down Lone Peak for a victory that proved to be the tournament winner. He pitched five innings, giving up one unearned run. Powers scattered five hits, worked around three walks and struck out eight batters.
On the season, Powers is batting .346, and he carries a 3.1 ERA.
The Elite Electrical team takes home the girls’ honor after claiming the league title. Coach Josh Schad’s team went 3-0 in the city tournament last week.
Players on the team are Olivia Angle, Cendyl Campbell, Luciana Fantini, Anya Gavillot, Kaliya Kinard, Kayoni Kinard, Karmyn Kjersten, Quinn Kump, Ryan Olson, Keelie Schad and Shyloh Williams.
For the second year, Leskovar Honda, home of the 20-year, 200,000-mile warranty, is teaming up with the ButteCast to honor the finest student-athletes from the Mining City in an effort to encourage more children to get up, get out and try all kinds of sports and activities.
