Eagles sweep Blue Ponies

Even with steady improvement from the beginning of the season, the Havre High volleyball team struggled in its home debut against a very talented conference opponent.

Thursday night, the Central A Blue Ponies hosted the Lewistown Golden Eagles. And while the Ponies are celebrating homecoming this week, it wasn’t the positive homecoming the Ponies were hoping for. The Eagles swept the Ponies in three games by scores of 25-11, 25-23, and 25-11.

In games one and three, the Ponies did not look comfortable on the floor. They were rushed in their sets, they never settled in, and the Eagles took full advantage of every mistake.

The Eagles jumped out to a 7-3 lead in game on and steadily widened the gap. And the stat line was similar in game three, this time the Eagles jumping out to a 9-5 lead before running away with the victory. The Eagles outhit, out served, and outplayed Havre, as the Ponies hurt themselves in several instances with serving errors and hitting errors.

A bright spot in Thursday night’s loss was the competitive play the Ponies showed in a narrow game-two loss.

“We were playing like a team in game two,” Havre High head coach Melanie Skoyen said. “And we were just limited our errors more. In game one they just started so fast, they served us off the court and we couldn’t do anything because they took us out of our offense. That is also what happened in game three, and it wasn’t necessarily our serve receive, our passes were good, but our setters weren’t confident enough to set to our hitters and we gave them too many easy hits and free balls. You can’t do that to Lewistown.”

It looked like a different HHS team on the floor in game two, but unfortunately they couldn’t lock down the win.

After trailing 4-1 early, the Ponies battled back to take advantage of two Lewistown errors, taking the 7-5 lead in the meantime. But the game went back and forth, including ties at 7-7, 14-14, and 17-17. HHS just couldn’t capture and keep the momentum as the Eagles squeeked out the 25-23 win after a dominating the Eagles Paige Zibell.

On the night, the Ponies totaled just 17 kills, two blocks, 14 assists, 40 digs and six aces. On the other side of the net, the Eagles totaled 36 kills, five blocks, 32 assists, 37 digs and 11 aces.

Aubrea Worm led the Ponies with six kills, while Jacinta Finneman added four. Martha Stocker had one block, and both Ellery Bressler and Dani Wagner had seven assists each. Bresler also had eight digs, while Lacey Waid led the Ponies with 14 digs and two aces.

HHS is back in action when they host Choteau at the Havre High gymnasium on Saturday at roughly 12 p.m.

Lewistown def. Havre

25-11, 25-23, 25-11

Havre – Kills 17 (Aubrea Worm 6, Jacinta Finneman 4); Blocks 2 (Martha Stocker 1); Assists 14 (Ellery Bresler 7, Dani Wagner 7); Digs 40 (Lacey Waid 14, Ellery Bressler 8); Aces 6 (Lacey Waid 2).

Lewistown – Kills 36 (Paige Zibell 15, Mikaela Olson 9); Blocks 5 (Michelle Monger 2, Paige Zibell 2); Assists 32 (Sydney Wier 30); Digs 37 (Michelle Monger 8, Jaree Mane 8); Aces 11 (Sydney Wier).