HHS boys clip Eagles

With two more big games on the slate for the Havre Blue Ponies, they came away with a split, but the win was a key one.

The Central A Ponies lost six straight games counting a tough 68-62 loss to the Class B Fairfield Eagles on the road Friday night. But the Ponies rebounded quite nicely to get the conference win over Lewistown Friday at home. HHS defeated the Golden Eagles 61-56, keeping their chances of a No. 2 in the conference finish alive with just one conference game left this regular season.

With the 1-1 split the Ponies are now 6-10 overall and 4-3 in the Central A.

“(Lewistown) was a very big win for us,” Havre High head coach Curt Leeds said. “Now we know we are playing Browning on a Friday night at divisionals instead of Lewistown or Livingston on a Thursday afternoon. That was big for our boys and now we have three weeks to prepare for Browning at the divisional tournament. We will play them to end our regular season, but now we know we will face them on back-to-back weekends.”

Hosting Lewistown Saturday, the Havre High seniors were able to exit the Havre High gymnasium with one final win.

But it came in a contest that never had the Ponies sitting with a comfortable lead. In fact, the Ponies and Golden Eagles were very well matched after the Ponies handled the conference rival fairly easily in the first meeting earlier this season.

Lewistown had five individuals score, while Havre had six. Havre also had three double-digit scorers, while Lewistown had just two. Dane Warp’s 30 points were matched by Lewistown’s Logan Wilcox, who also had a 30-point outing. Rebounds were almost identical as well. The Golden Eagles finished with 24 total boards and the Ponies finished with 21, making the Ponies’ extra scorer and extra double-digit scorer a difference-maker in the win.

Jase Kato and Michael Bakke both scored four points each for the Ponies, while Brian Smith finished with three. Following Warp’s 30, Kade Rismon and Nate Rismon both finished with 10 points each, helping the Ponies secure the five-point victory.

“I just did what I try to do every game, and that is to be aggressive,” Warp said. “I know that is my roll, to just attack the basket and open things up for my teammates.

“That dribble drive, when we attack the middle of the key, that kills a zone defense,” Warp added. “We just try to get the ball to the middle of the floor on a zone press, and when they showed a little bit of a man press, we just walked the ball up the floor. But we know we still have some things to fix, especially before we play Browning again.”

After leading 15-12 after the first quarter, then maintaining a 30-26 lead at the break, the Ponies never gave up their lead, but they did have to fend off a fighting Lewistown squad.

Wilcox hit timely shot after timely shot to keep the Golden Eagles within striking distance, and the Ponies attempted a few different zone looks to limit his production, as well as others like Dylan Stenseth who finished with just five points.

Havre ran a couple different zone looks and turned up the heat with a full-court press throughout the night. But the Golden Eagles remained poised and shot very well. Their worst quarter was a 4-for-12 outing in the final frame but, even then, Lewistown found a way to get to the foul line, including Wilcox making nine visits to the charity stripe. Lewistown was only 6-for-13 on the night, leaving too many points off the scoreboard. However, eight 3-pointers helped make up for the missed free throws.

“They (Eagles) were finding success against our 1-2-2 and 2-3 zones,” Leeds said. “They also had some guys that were stepping up and really hitting big shots. They stepped up and really shot the ball well against us.”

But Havre’s offense was able to do enough to keep the Ponies out in front all night long.

HHS outscored Lewistown in all but the third quarter. The Golden Eagles outscored the Ponies 14-11. But the Ponies knocked down five treys of their own, while also leaving some points on the floor with an 8-of-15 free throw appearances. Early in the fourth quarter, the Ponies proved they were up for the battle as they, too, kept finding holes in the Lewistown zone and full-court looks. Clinging to a 43-41 lead Warp knocked down a 3-pointer to increase the lead to 46-41 with just over six minutes left to play. That trey was the start of a 12-4 run in the fourth that led to a 55-45 lead before closing out the Golden Eagles. The run saw three Ponies score, including Kade Rismon hit two key buckets.

“They (Eagles) mixed up their defensive looks too., Leeds said. “They were trying to neutralize Dane (Warp) a little bit, but I was really suprised they didn’t try to faceguard him like they did last game. That is what we prepared for, but they just came out in a regular old man or regular old zone. A perfect situation would be to have Dane’s (Warp) numbers stay where they are, but have everybody else’s come up. But that was great to have those six guys score, and we always want at least three guys in double digits. We know Dane (Warp) and Kade (Rismon) can do it every night, but we need other guys to continue to step up and score too.”

Saturday’s win followed a tough loss to Fairfield on the road Friday.

The Ponies came out of the gate hot, but just couldn’t hold on for the win. The Ponies outscored the Eagles 21-10 in the opening quarter, but coach Leeds saw the momentum change as the game progressed. Fairfield eventually outscored the Ponies 25-14 in the third and 19-15 in the fourth to take over and grab the narrow win in nonleague play.

Warp scored 30 to lead the Ponies again, followed by Nate Rismon with 13 and Kade Rismon with another 10. But the Ponies gave up 20 to Yancy Gagne and 21 to Trevor Schenk in the loss.

“Our intensity went down, and their intensity went up and we let them back in the game,” Leeds said. “They are the second best team in their conference right now, but I thought we played better than them, we just let up and they took advantage.

“We need to find a way to play for the full 32 minutes,” Leeds added about the current state of the Ponies. “Early in the season, we were competing all the way through, but now we are in a little lull, and we have to get out. We might need to mix things up at practice; we have talked about that maybe helping us. We need to make practice more competitive and bring more intensity to practice.”

Havre has just one nonconference game this week as the Ponies prepare for Rocky Boy Saturday in Rocky Boy.

Fairfield 68, Havre 62

Havre 21 12 14 15 - 62

Fairfield 10 14 25 19 - 68

Havre – Nate Rismon 13, Dane Warp 30, Brian Smith 2, Michael Bakke 3, Jase Kato 4, Kade Rismon 10. Totals: 21 17-19.

Fairfield – CJ McWilliams 3, Tanner Mayer 8, Dalton Palmer 3, Yancy Gagne 20, Morgan Schenk 5, Trevor Schenk 21, Joel Beck 8. Totals: 24 16-25.

Havre 61, Lewistown 56

Lewistown 12 14 14 16 – 56

Havre 15 15 11 20 - 61

Lewistown - James Derheim 6, Morgan Ray 11, Logan Wilcox 30, Dylan Stenseth 5, Jessey Perry 4.

Havre - Nate Rismon 10, Dane Warp 30, Brian Smith 3, Michael Bakke 4, Jase Kato 4, Kade Rismon 10.