Six Hartington players featured in All-Star game

PLAINVIEW — Six Hartington Pony League players competed in the Quad County All-Star Game held July 23 in Plainview.

“We were only allowed three players from each of our teams,” Hartington skipper Cale Haberer said. “We felt kind of bad about that; we had a lot of great kids that didn’t get to play, but that’s how it goes.”

The team Hartington represented was beaten in the contest 5-3 with Grady Haberer and Bodie Hochstein scoring two of the three runs in the game. Haberer’s run came on a two-run home run in the contest.

Hochstein, Haberer, Easton Hochstein, Hunter Bensen, Micah Cattau and Tate Fischer all represented Hartington in the game.

Fischer went 2-for-2 at the plate, Cattau was 0-for-2, Bodie Hochstein was 0-for-1 and scored once, Bensen was 0-for-2, Haberer was 1-for-1 with the 2 RBIs and Easton Hochstein was 1-for-1 with a double and drove in the other run for his team.

“We batted everybody on the team, which was 15 guys for our team,” Haberer said. “So we didn’t get very many plate appearances.”

Cattau, Fischer, Bensen and Easton Hochstein each threw one inning on the mound.

The All-Star game ended a successful season for the Hartington 14-and-under program.

The Navy team completed its season at 9-4, the Royal team finished 11-1 and the combined team went 22-1, with the lone loss coming from an 11-10 game with Marshall, Minn., back on June 18 in the finals of a tournament.

“This group of kids have been a great group to work with all summer — they just get it and they love baseball,” Haberer said. “If they keep working like they are, they will be a lot of fun to watch — they are going to win a lot of games down the road in a lot of sports. They just need to stay hungry and focused.”