Knights prepare for Districts in Montana, coming off sweep of No. 1 seed Havre

By JAMES TUBB on July 24, 2025.

SUBSCRIBE NOW

jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb

The Medicine Hat Knights of Columbus Knights enter Districts today on a hot note.

The Knights head to Lewistown, Mnt. winners of nine of their last 11 games with two straight wins against the No. 1 seed Havre Northstars.

“We have a lot of confidence right now, there’s been some games in the last couple that we maybe didn’t deserve to win, somehow we found a way and that’s what good teams find a way to do,” head coach Cole Schreiber said. “When they’re confident, anything can happen. Districts, it’s all about getting a couple good pitching performances, making the routine plays and then it just comes down to timely hitting, really. If we can do that, I think we give ourselves a chance and it’ll be exciting.”

The Knights enter the ‘A’ Districts as the No. 5 seed with a 21-19 record, their best since before 2020. Ending the season on the high note gives them a step to keep building on shortstop/pitcher Liam Cunningham says.

“It just builds up our confidence even more and makes us just a lot better,” Cunningham said. “We came together as a team to win that (final) game and now everyone’s just really hyped up coming into Districts.”

Cunningham says the group has grown throughout the summer and he says they play for the group every night.

“It’s an awesome group of guys, we’ve had a great year so far, considering how none of us have really played together before, it’s been a great year with everyone,” Cunningham said.

The Knights open their tournament today against the Fort MacLeod Royals, a team they split 2-2 with this season. The two losses came in the first two games of the season, part of five losses in the first 10 games.

“We did kind of have a tough start, it’s such a big jump for the kids that have never played at the A level before,” Schreiber said. “But they got better as the year went on and once guys started buying into the team philosophy, we started to have a little bit more success. We had a tough schedule at the start, getting the Lethbridge Miners and Vauxhall Spurs really early. Those are two teams that are real strong. But once we got those guys out of the way and the schedule was a little bit easier, we found a way to kind of go on a run.”

Schreiber says they will go where their older players take them, led by the top of the order of Kane Bishop, Ethan Chenard, Cunningham and Ethan Grad. He also says they’ll rely on pitching depth to get them through Districts.

“Our pitching rotation is probably a little bit deeper than we’ve had in the last couple years, we don’t have just one guy where some teams have, a legit ace that goes out and throws seven innings and can strike out 12,” Schreiber said. “We don’t have a guy like that, but we got five or six who probably give us a really good chance to win on any given day. So in a tournament like this, one guy’s obviously great, but you need more than one guy.

“You have to get four wins to win the whole tournament, so having the depth is probably more important.”