Bison pull away from HHS girls

The Great Falls High Bison are big, strong, and physical, and with just one loss against them this season they are obviously also difficult to defeat.

The No. 5-ranked Havre High girls ran into that stout Bison squad Thursday night at the Havre High gymnasium. The Bison completed the season sweep over the Central A Blue Ponies with a 59-47 win in nonconference action. The loss dropped the Ponies’ overall record to a still impressive 9-4.

“They (Bison) are going to make us better in the long run,” Havre High head coach Dustin Kraske said. “I really believe that. Great Falls High is a good team, and to our kids’ credit, they battled back, fought and made runs. We just weren’t quite prepared enough to finish things off and get completely back into the game. Credit Great Falls High for that.”

Momentum changed in the second half and the Ponies looked poised for a roaring comeback.

After trailing 25-16 at the break, the Ponies opened up the second half by turning up the heat on the defensive end of the floor. After sticking to an aggressive half-court man through the first two frames, the Ponies started the second half with a full-court press. And for a short time the added pressure worked in the Ponies’ favor. A 3-pointer to start the third quarter by the Bison’s Taylor Kumm really quick started the HHS pressure, and the result was an 11-2 run by the HHS offense. Just before the four minute mark in the third quarter Morgan Mazurkiewicz hit a trey of her own to reduce the GFH lead to 30-27. Havre also forced the Bison into five turnovers in the opening four minutes of the second half, three of those turnovers resulting in Blue Pony buckets.

But just as the Ponies made adjustments, so did the Bison. The HHS comeback was short lived as the Bison figured out the Havre pressure and settled back into a groove which meant points from all over the floor.

“Our kids did a nice job of being active in the passing lanes and that gave us some momentum,” Kraske said. “The pressure led to easy baskets, which is perfect, but we just didn’t have enough of that.”

Great Falls closed out the third quarter with 8-0 run, also out-rebounding the Ponies 9-3 in the frame. The Bison also turned to their full-court press in the third to change the momentum. GFH pressed the Ponies the final two minutes, and it really bothered the Pony offense, which had streaky scoring all night. Tori Mazurkiewicz led the Ponies with her 22 points. She also hit the only two 3-pointers the Ponies hit in the first half on a total of seven attempts. The Ponies finished the game 4-of-14 from behind the arc, but made a decisive decision to try and score inside against the oversized Bison in the second half.

“We made the decision going into the second half to try and get more things done at the basket,” Kraske said. “That opened some things up and our kids continued to try and get to the hoop, but we missed some easy shots tonight. But really I didn’t think we had much offensive rhythm and we need more of that.

“But our rebounding is our achilles heel,” Kraske added. “We have been practicing it very, very hard all the time, and in practice it looks better than it does in games. We need to commit to rebounding or we are in trouble. We are too fundamentally sound defensively to give up offensive rebounds. Our kids are busing their tails, they are working as hard as they can, so now just do the technique of rebounding, block out and go get the ball.”

Tori Mazurkiewicz, Peyton Filius and Brandy Lambourne all finished with seven points each for the Ponies. But the Ponies also came up with just four offensive rebounds, led by Lacey Waid with three. And defensively, the Ponies were slightly better with eight boards. The Bison grabbed 27 rebounds on the night.

Havre will get back to action Saturday when the Ponies travel to Great Falls to take on the Class AA CMR Rustlers at the CMR Fieldhouse.

Great Falls High 59, Havre 47

Great Falls 9 16 13 21 – 59

Havre 8 8 11 20 – 47

Great Falls High – Liz Klinker 5 6-8 16, Gabby Fought 1 0-0 3, Nora Klick 4 3-4 11, Mercedes Bourgeau 4 4-4 12, Mikaela Kynett 0 4-6 4, Markaela Francis 1 3-4 5, Darbi Fought 1 0-0 3, Taylor Kumm 1 2-2 5. Totals: 17 22-28.

Havre High – Brandy Lambourne 2 3-4 7, Morgan Mazurkiewicz 8 3-4 22, Lacey Waid 2 0-0 4, Peyton Filius 3 -1 7, Tori Mazurkiewicz 3 1-2 7, Haley Ohm 0 0-2 0. Totals: 18 7-13.

Total fouls – GFH 14, HHS 17. Fouled out – Waid. 3-pointers – M. Mazurkiewicz 3, Filius, G. Fought, D. Fought, Kumm.