Eagles take out Blue Pony girls

The Havre High girls basketball team played well in the opening round of the Central A divisional tournament, but just couldn't break the barrier that was the Lewistown Golden Eagles.

Thursday afternoon in Belgrade, the No. 5 Central A Ponies opened the postseason against the No. 4 Eagles in first round action. But the Eagles defeated the Ponies 43-37. The loss marked the third time this season that the Ponies fell to the Eagles.

"They just played a little bit better than us today," Havre High head coach Dustin Kraske said. "We weren't able to get some stops down the stretch like we needed to. But our girls did a nice job, we had a tough time scoring and Lewistown made a few more plays than we did at the end."

The Ponies battled back and forth with the Eagles all game long. HHS fell behind early, but battled back to take the lead. The same thing happened again in the second half, but the Ponies just weren't able to hold on.

HHS was outscored 14-5 in the first quarter but outscored the Eagles 12-6 in the second. The Eagles also outscored the Ponies 8-7 in the third and 15-13 in the fourth.

Despite the loss, the Ponies came out and competed hard. The offense and defense kind of had an up and down night, but they never gave up.

"I wish we would have defended better throughout the whole game," Kraske said "But Lewistown did a nice job. But our girls showed great character the way they kept battling back."

Paighton Gilman had another good outing with a team-high 12 points and Sammy Evans followed with eight of her own. Jaclyn Evans also finished with seven while Peyton Filius finished with six. Jaclyn Evans also led the Ponies with six rebounds, while Christina Mack led with five assists.

With the loss the Ponies were knocked into the consolation bracket where they will wait to play again on Saturday. Browning will face Livingston today, and the winner of that game will face Belgrade, and from there, whoever loses will then face Havre on Saturday.

Lewistown 43, Havre 37

Lewistown 14 6 8 15 – 43

Havre 5 12 7 13 – 37

Lewistown – Brooklyn Rodgers 1-1 0-0 2, McCalle Feller 4-9 5-5 14, Allie Adams 2-4 1-5 5, Makenzie Guyer 3-6 1-4 8, Amanda Stenseth 2-9 2-2 7, Sierra Fox 3-6 1-5 7

Havre – Jaclyn Evans 2-6 2-2 7, Brandy Lambourne 1-4 0-0 3, Sammy Evans 4-4 0-0 8, Peyton Filius 2-8 0-0 6, Christina Mack 0-2 1-2 1, Paighton Gilman 5-11 2-3 12

3-pointers – HHS 3-13 (J. Evans 1, Filius 2, Lambourne 1), LEW 3-6 (Feller 1, Guyer 1, Stenseth 1). Total Fouls – HHS 17, LEW 17. Fouled Out – Guyer, J. Evans.