Tennis teams invade Havre

The Havre High boys and girls tennis teams are off to a great start. Not only on the court, but because of the fact the Blue Ponies haven't had a weather delay in their schedule yet.

And the Ponies are hoping for at least one more good weather day as they prepare to host the annual Havre Invitational Saturday morning at the Bill Vaughey Memorial Tennis Courts in Havre. The Havre Invite features teams from Lewistown, Conrad and Cut Bank, as well as all of the HHS varsity and junior varsity performers.

Havre High's Nick Rhines hits a forehand during last year's Havre Invitational tennis tournament. The Blue Ponies will host Lewistown, Cut Bank and Conrad in the 2013 Havre Invite Saturday at the Bill Vaughey Memroial Tennis Courts in Havre.

It's an exciting day of tennis for many reasons and it's one HHS head coach George Ferguson is looking forward too.

"The Havre Invite is big for us," Ferguson said. "One reason is, it's the only meet where all our kids play at home this season. It's the only chance for all of their families and friends, and the rest of the community for that matter, really get to see us play. So that's a big part of it.

"But this meet is also important because it's the first tournament format for us, and all of the teams coming," he continued. "Up to this point, we've just played duals, so this meet will give kids a chance to play some different players and get used to the bracket format of tennis. And that's something we'll see more of later in the year."

Saturday's tournament will feature boys and girls singles brackets for the No. 1's and No. 2's, as well as a No. 3's singles bracket for both boys and girls, which will also see many of Havre's young JV players competing. There is also a bracket for boys and girls doubles.

As for the competition, Havre should be pretty used to all of the competitors in attendance, but with this being a tournament format, Ferguson said his players will be matched up against many different opponents for the first time this season.

"The brackets are still designed to put mostly kids of the same skill level together," Ferguson said. "But not necessarily in the doubles, or the fact that we enter all of our JV kids in this meet. So this is a good way for kids to get all kinds of different opponents and for the young kids to learn a lot as the day goes on. I feel like every year, our younger players gain a ton of experience from this tournament, and that's really big for us. So at the end of the day, one of our big goals is for all our kids to have played as many matches as possible, and for them to have gotten as much out of the day as they can."

Havre's boys lineup will feature Freshman Jeff Miller and Ned Malone in the top singles bracket, while Zach Hellegaard, Jacob Holden and Jerod Boles will all play in the other bracket. J.J. Hovet and Nick Rhines, Noah Landgraf and Brian Smith and Patrick Leeds and Jamie Lieberg will all play doubles, while Boles will also team with Wyatt Lindbloom in doubles.

On the girls side, the Ponies will be without No. 3 doubles player Haley Graham, so Tatiana Ralph will team up with Morgan Jappe for the weekend. Havre's strong lineup of doubles is led by the No. 1 duo of Lainey Chagnon and Jennifer Cichosz and the No. 2 squad of Ellery Bresler and Breck Don. Also playing doubles will be freshmen Alara Vogel and Sarah Holsinger, Megan Smith and Ashley Hoffland and Raynell Clancy and Courtney Gobin. In singles, Brandy Lambourne and Jade McCormick will play in the top bracket, while Shannon Herring, Madison Huebsch and Rainey Stoner will play in the No. 3's bracket.

And while this is the third weekend of the season for the Ponies, and many players now have quite a few matches under their belt, Ferguson said his team's goals remain unchanged.

"Improvement," he said. "That's all we continue to stress. We just want to keep getting better and this weekend will tell us a lot because we'll end up seeing a lot of the same kids we played just last weekend in Conrad. So we'll really find out where we're at on Saturday. And I always point to this weekend as the first corner of the season. Next week, we'll be at the Class A meet in Cut Bank where we'll see some very tough teams, so this Saturday will tell us a lot about our teams and how far we've come so far.

"And this tournament is exciting for us," he added. "And we want all of our kids to go out and have fun and do the best they can. We enjoy playing on our home courts and I know all of our kids are excited and want to show the community what Havre tennis is all about."

Saturday's Havre Invitational will start at 8 a.m. at the Bill Vaughey Memorial Tennis Courts. With 82 matches to be played, the action will run right up until sundown.