Ponies take a big step by beating Stevi

GREAT FALLS — The Belgrade Panthers turned out to be a thorn in the side of the Havre High boys basketball team — a thorn the Ponies just couldn’t get rid of. However, the Ponies still took a major step forward at the Class A state basketball tournament.

Belgrade beat Havre for the fourth time this season, eliminating the Blue Ponies from the state tournament with a 47-26 win Saturday morning at the Four Seasons Arena in Great Falls. But the loss to the Panthers wouldn’t overshadow all that HHS has accomplished in the last two weeks, including the Ponies getting their first state tournament win in eight years when they beat the Stevensville Yellowjackets Friday afternoon in a loser-out contest.

“This a major step for this team,” Havre High head coach Curt Leeds said. “To come to state and to win a game, this is a great experience for this program. The boys should be very proud of what they did here. I know I’m very proud of them.”

HHS should be especially proud of Friday’s 55-49 win over the Yellowjackets, the defending Class A champions. Havre shrugged off a tough, and sometimes ugly game against Columbia Falls Thursday by coming out and playing much better basketball against Stevi. The Ponies also rode the wave of sensational sophomore Dane Warp’s 32 points and 10 rebounds to an impressive state tournament victory.

“I thought we came out with a lot more intensity and energy today,” Leeds said of Friday’s win. “We were still fighting some nerves in the first quarter, but by the second quarter, I thought we did a much better job of settling down and just focusing on playing basketball.”

Havre may have been fighting nerves early, but the Ponies still got off to a much better start. Nate Rismon nailed an early 3-pointer and Warp scored back-to-back buckets to end the period, staking the Ponies to a 12-8 lead. Warp added another eight points in the second stanza, while Michael Bakke came off the bench to make a key play which gave the Ponies a 20-18 lead late in the half. And when Kade Rismon got an offensive board and put it back in, Havre was able to stroll into the locker room with a 22-18 lead, and some much-needed momentum.

“Michael Bakke played a great game today,” Leeds said. “His rebounding and free-throw shooting was big for us. Defensively, I thought we did a good job in the first half. Our game plan was to try and limit their two stars (Jared Schultz and Zach Gavlack). They are really good players. And in the first half, I thought we did a good job of that. In the second half though, we played great defense, and that was a big key in this win.”

The Ponies’ zone defense did bother the Yellowjackets, a normally high-octane team. Meanwhile, Havre battled hard with Bakke continuing to make clutch plays. But with under a minute left in the third period, the Ponies found themselves trailing 32-31, and momentum, too, seemed to be shifting Stevi’s way.

And that’s when Warp took over, and ultimately delivered HHS the win.

Warp drilled a triple just before the third-quarter buzzer, and with less than three minutes gone in the fourth, he was on a streak of scoring nine straight points. Warp’s 9-0 run lifted Havre to a 41-34 lead, while Bakke made two free throws a couple of minutes later to stretch HHS’s lead to double-digits. Stevi would hit a couple of later threes to make the score closer, but Havre, for being such a young team, looked like a veteran crew in putting the Yellowjackets away.

“This team has really matured,” Leeds said. “They have come a long way, and today was a good example of that because there were times in the second half where it probably could have gotten away from us. But instead, our guys made the plays. We got big rebounds, we made free throws, and we hit some big shots when we needed them. Dane’s 3-pointer was a big one, and I think that helped us kind of seize the momentum, and realize, ‘hey, we can win this game.’”

Warp’s 32 points included a stellar 22 in the second half. He was an impressive 13-of-18 from the field, while he made nine free throws, grabbed four offensive boards, had four steals and five assists.

“I didn't really rely on shooting a lot, I just tried to get to the hole,” Warp said. “Everybody knows it can be hard to shoot at state, so I just tried to get to the free throw line. But this was a great win for us, a lot of people didn't think we should even be here. For the seniors this is great because they will remember it for a long time, but for underclassmen like me, this is just a stepping stone. We are going to keep attacking this year, and next year, we are going to come back even better.”

“Dane is a special kid,” Leeds added. “He’s probably been box-and-led more than any kid I know. He knows how to score. He’s a great athlete.”

Bakke also gave the Ponies a big lift, scoring nine points, pulling down five boards and making five foul shots, while Kade Rismon chipped in with eight points. As a team, Havre was much more efficient Friday, committing half as many turnovers as it did Thursday while forcing the Yellowjackets into 21 turnovers. Stevi got 18 points from Schultz and 15 by Gavlak, but neither player was a factor after the Ponies took the lead in the third quarter.

The win over a Stevensville team which lifted the state title trophy a year ago was an important piece of the puzzle in Havre’s progression as a program, much in the same way last week’s Central A win over Browning was in Belgrade. And Leeds was proud of his team for what it accomplished Friday.

“It is exciting,” Leeds said. “This is a big win for us. It means a lot. It is great for our seniors to be able to come to their first state tournament and win a game. And the experience our younger kids are getting, it’s great.”

Panthers 47, Blue Ponies 26

Not only was the win over Stevensville Friday a great thing for the Blue Pony program, which last played in the state tournament in 2006, it also kept the Ponies in the tourney and gave them one more shot at the Panthers. But Saturday morning, Belgrade stomped out any chance Havre had of finally finding a way to beat them.

The Panthers had beaten the Ponies twice during the regular season and again in last week’s Central A championship game, but HHS relished the idea of playing them Saturday at the Four Seasons Arena,

And for a time, the Ponies looked like they might just give themselves a chance to get past the pesky Panthers. Havre did start slow, but Belgrade didn’t set the nets on fire either, and the result was an 11-6 Panther lead after the first quarter. The HHS offense continued to struggle shooting against the Panther zone in the second, but again, the Pony defense was bothering the Panthers, too, while Bakke scored four points in the second eight minutes, helping HHS stay close at 18-12 at intermission.

“Defensively, I thought we did a pretty good job on them again, especially in the first half,” Leeds said. “Neither team shot the ball really well, and we shot it especially poor early in the game. But we still were only down six at that point.”

But as much confidence as HHS had, things started to fall apart early in the third quarter. Warp came out strong and scored four straight to pull the Ponies within two, and looked like he might just take over the same way he did against Stevi Friday. However, midway through the period, he was whistled for his third foul, then was assessed a technical foul, which added a fourth personal and with their star player on the bench for the remainder of the third quarter, the Ponies could only watch as Belgrade started to pull away.

After Warp went out, the Panthers went on a 7-1 run and only a Kade Rismon bucket at the end of the period stopped the bleeding. The Panthers then stretched their lead to 12 points early in the fourth stanza, while Warp cut it back down to seven when he re-entered game.

But that was as close as the Ponies would get. Shiloh Christopher scored on two straight runs in the lane, and sparked a 16-2 Panther run to end the game and the Ponies’ season. The Panthers wound up shooting a sizzling 65 percent in the second half and 51 percent for the game, while Havre could just never get going. The Ponies shot 22 percent from the floor and went a dismal 1-for-14 from beyond the arc in what was their fourth straight loss to the Panthers this season.

“They just shot it better than we did today,” Leeds said. “Actually, that’s been pretty much the difference every time we’ve played them. I thought we were pretty good defensively, but they (Panthers) shot it so much better than we did in the second half and that was that.”

Warp finished with a team-high 13 points, while Kade Rismon had eight and eight rebounds. Bakke added five, but the rest of the HHS lineup went a combined 0-for-19 for the game. Belgrade, which went on to lose to Laurel in Saturday night’s consolation game, got 13 points from Christopher and 12 by Trevor Mahn.

But as tough as the loss was for the Ponies, including seeing seniors Kade Rismon, Brian Smith and Jon Faber’s careers end, Leeds said his team should be proud of what it accomplished, not only in Great Falls, but at the end of the season.

“I feel like we accomplished a lot,” Leeds said. “We got to this tournament when people said we weren’t going to and then we win a game, beating the defending state champions. The boys have grown a lot and this was a great experience for them this weekend. This was a major step for this team and our program.”

Havre 55, Stevensville 49 (lo)

Havre 12 10 12 21 – 55

Stevensville 8 10 14 17 – 49

Havre - Jerod Boles 0-3 0-0 0, Nate Rismon 1-8 1-4 4, Jonathan Faber 0-1 0-0 0, Dane Warp 9-17 13-18 32, Michael Bakke 2-3 5-6 9, Jase Kato 1-1 0-0 2, Kade Rismon 3-7 2-4 8. Totals: 16-40 21-22.

Stevensville - Bo Zeiler 2-2 0-0 5, Chris Lords 0-2 1-2 1, Christopher Bergman 1-6 2-2 4, Chance Coleman 1-2 0-0 2, Zach Gavlak 5-11 5-9 15, Jared Schultz 5-14 6-6 18, Bryce Torrey 1-5 2-4 4. Totals: 15-42 16-23.

Total fouls: Havre 18, Stevensville 24. Fouled out: Schultz. 3-pointers: Havre 2-12 (Boles 0-3, N. Rismon 1-5, Faber 0-1, Warp 1-3), Stevensville 3-12 (Zeiler 1-1, Bergman 0-3, Schultz 2-8). Rebounds: Havre 23 (Warp 10), Stevensville 36 (Gavlak 9, Torrey 9). Assists: Havre 7 (Warp 3), Stevensville 7. Turnovers: Havre 10, Stevensville 21.

Belgrade 47, Havre 26 (lo)

Havre 6 6 7 7 - 26

Belgrade 11 7 9 20 - 47

Havre – Jerod Boles 0-1 0-0 0, Nate Rismon 0-6 0-0 0, Jonathan Faber 0-3 0-0 0, Dane Warp 6-18 0-2 13, Jeff Miller 0-1 0-0 0, Brian Smith 0-3 0-0 0, Michael Bakke 0-4 5-6 5, Nate Korb 0-0 0-0 0, Wyatt Lindbloom 0-0 0-0 0, Jase Kato 0-2 0-0 0, Kade Rismon 4-8 0-0 4. Totals: 10-46 5-8 26.

Belgrade – Trevor Mahn 5-10 2-3 12, Brayden Konkol 5-7 0-0 10, Brandon Stubbs 0-1 0-2 0, Koby Ruff 1-6 0-0 2, Angel Torres 0-0 0-0 0, Ethan Turner 1-1 0-0 3, Shiloh Christopher 6-8 1-2 13, Keldon Lamb 2-4 0-1 4, Chase Robecker 0-0 2-2 2, Morgan Eitel 0-0 0-0 0, Daniel Tanascu 0-1 1-2 1, Baxter Roys 0-1 0-0 0. Totals: 20-39 6-15 47.

3-point goals – Havre 1-14 (Warp 1-7), Belgrade 1-6 (Turner 1-1). Total fouls – Havre 14, Belgrade 13. Fouled out – none. Rebounds – Havre 27 (K. Rismon 8), Belgrade 31 (Konkol 8). Assists – Havre 6 (Kato 2), Belgrade 13 (Konkol 3).