Big Blue: Ponies beat Broncs for Class A title

GREAT FALLS — Sometimes, history takes a while to repeat itself. In the case of girls basketball at Havre High School, it took 17 years.

As it turned out, the wait was well worth it.

Saturday night at the Four Seasons Arena in Great Falls, the Havre High girls basketball team capped a dominating performance at the Class A state tournament by beating Hamilton 52-43 in the state championship game. The state championship is Havre’s first in girls basketball since the 1997 school year, and it's the school’s fourth overall.

Saturday night’s win over Hamilton was the culmination of an incredible run by the senior-laden Blue Ponies, a run which started with two blowout wins and a third straight Central A title two weeks ago in Belgrade, and ended with three straight nights of tremendous basketball in Great Falls.

"I'm so proud of the kids, I’m just so happy for them," Havre High head coach Dustin Kraske said. "I'm proud of them for all the hard work and effort that it takes to be great. These kids have done all those things. And tonight, they were great. At this tournament, they were great."

“I can’t even describe this, it feels just so surreal right now,” added Pony senior and four-year starter Peyton Filius. “I just feel like we have accomplished the goal we have been working towards for a few years now, and all of our hard work has paid off. We were just so close in the past, and I don’t know, this is just so amazing I don’t how to describe it.”

The goal of winning a state championship has been in the minds of this particular Blue Pony squad for several seasons now. But it really started to become a reality when the Ponies ousted defending state champion Laurel 43-28 in Friday night’s semifinal game. That win set up Saturday’s meeting with Hamilton, the Southwest A champion, and, from there, the Ponies took destiny into their own hands.

And the Ponies did it with defense. Havre had played great defense all weekend, and that didn’t change against the high-powered Broncs. The Ponies set the tone for the game by holding Hamilton to six points in the first quarter. They also held Hamilton to just 37 percent shooting for the night, forced 12 turnovers, many coming in the first half, and held star scorer Taylor Goligoski to just 4-of-13 shooting and 13 points.

“Hamilton has fantastic team,” Kraske said. “They are extremely well-coached and are a very classy program. And for anyone to win a state championship, you know you’re going to have to beat a great team like Hamilton is. You know you have to play very well on that night. And I think that’s what I’m most proud of, is these kids did that. They played very well when we had to. We played great, in a great game against a great team.”

Great is one of the many words to describe how the Ponies played. Senior Haley Ohm scored an early bucket to spark the Havre offense, while, for the second straight night, sophomore Dani Wagner came off the bench and got an early score of her own as HHS led 10-6 at the end of the first.

And while Havre was clamping down on defense, the Pony offense started to roll near the end of the first half. Wagner scored again to put HHS up 12-9, and an inside move by Morgan Mazurkiewicz gave the Ponies a 16-11 lead with four minutes left.

But, as she did all weekend, senior Brandy Lambourne would deliver some momentum-shifting blows, starting with a 3-pointer just before the first half ended. The triple sent the Ponies into halftime with a 21-17 lead, and Lambourne, who poured in a game-high 25 points, and was clearly the MVP of the state tournament, was just getting started.

“I didn’t play scared and I played aggressive all the way around,” Lambourne said. “No matter what happened throughout the game. I just kept taking deep breaths to calm my nerves and that’s all it took.”

And with Lambourne and the Ponies playing calm, Hamilton could do little to stop them in the second half. Filius opened the third with a three, and Lambourne came up with another dagger to close it when she buried her second trey of the night with just :05 left on the clock. That arcing shot from the top of the key sent HHS into the fourth period with a 30-22 edge.

Lambourne then opened what was a fast-paced fourth with a baseline layup to give the Ponies a 10-point lead. Hamilton rallied twice in the period, the first coming by way of a 9-3 run that was sparked by Jaylee Albert and finished by a Sami Kratofil jumper. At that point, the Broncs trailed 37-34 with just over four minutes to go, but Lambourne took over again. She answered with her third three, then grabbed a steal and went coast-to-coast to put HHS back up by eight.

The Broncs would hit another three, but four Morgan Mazurkiewicz free throws gave Havre some distance. Hamilton’s Kiole Nye would drain one more bomb to make the score 48-43 with 1:07 left, but fittingly, Lambourne iced the game with a layup and a free throw following Nye’s trey, and less than a minute later, the Ponies and their huge throng of fans were celebrating wildly in the middle of the famed Four Season’s Arena floor.

“It is awesome that all these fans were supporting us and behind us all season long. This is just awesome,” Lambourne said. “I threw the ball up (at the buzzer) and I don’t know what was going through my head, it was just pure excitement. I looked over at Peyton (Filius) and we were just waiting for the buzzer to sound, it was crazy. It was the longest final seconds ever.

“I didn’t let those outside shots that they (Broncs) were taking bother me,” she added. “We just moved on to the next play and took it from there.”

“It’s amazing, it is awesome, it’s crazy and it really hasn’t sunk in all the way. It has and it hasn’t,” added Morgan Mazurkiewicz, who made five foul shots in the final two minutes and scored the final point for the Ponies. “The community is amazing and I didn’t know if I expected this much support (this weekend), but it is really awesome. This is a huge goal I can check off my list, it really was a huge goal of all of ours.”

Lambourne finished off a spectacular performance at the state tournament by averaging 22 points per game. She also grabbed a game-high seven rebounds against Hamilton, while her teammates came up big in the clutch. Morgan Mazurkiewicz scored nine, while Filius and Tori Mazurkiewicz each added five. Goligoski and Albert each scored 13 for the Broncs, who finished 19-4 on the year.

“I thought we were very, very poised tonight,” Kraske said of the Ponies, who ended the dream season with a 17-6 overall record. “It just felt like when we really needed to make a play, or make a big shot we did it, and we did it with confidence. We executed really well in important parts of the game tonight.

“And that’s something that really speaks to the hard work and effort this team has put into this for a long time,” Kraske added. “They’ve put in hundreds of hours in the gym, they’ve worked hard individually and together. We have kids who bought into and believed in what we were doing and they all accepted and played their own role and did it all very well. It’s just a really special group and I’m so happy for them that they get to experience this.”

Indeed, Saturday night was a dream come true for the Ponies, a team with five seniors, three three-year starters and a group who has spent years together building for what happened Saturday night. It started with an impressive opening performance against Frenchtown, and continued with Friday night’s defensive gem against Laurel, a game in which Lambourne hit four trey’s and scored 19 points, while Morgan Mazurkiewicz added 14.

But the culmination was Saturday night’s win over Hamilton. It was historic, it was emotional and it was a night that will never be forgotten, and a win executed by a team that will never be forgotten.

“This is a bittersweet ending because I am leaving Havre High,” Filius said. “But this is the best possible way to end a career.”

“I am overjoyed right now, it feels better than I thought it would,” Ohm added. “I didn’t think I would be bawling after, but I am. All I could think (at the end) was that ‘we are going to get this, we are the champs.’ I am just so happy and this is amazing.”

They Didi It!

Havre 52, Hamilton 43 (1st)

Havre 10 11 9 22 -- 52

Hamilton 6 11 5 21 -- 43

Havre – Brandy Lambourne 10-15 2-4 25, Dani Wagner 2-3 0-0 4, Morgan Mazurkiewicz 2-8 5-6 9, Lacey Waid 1-4 0-0 2, Peyton Filius 1-7 2-2 5, Tori Mazurkiewicz 2-3 1-4 5, Haley Ohm 1-2 0-0 2. Totals: 19-42 10-16.

Hamilton – McKayl Rothie 1-1 0-0 3, Taylor Goligoski 4-13 4-6 13, Ellie Hurlbert 1-2 0-0 2, Jaylee Albert 5-12 3-4 13, Kloie Nye 1-1 0-0 3, Kali Hayes 2-4 0-0 6, Brianna Huggans 0-2 1-2 1, Sami Kratofil 1-3 0-0 2. Totals: 15-38 8-12.

Total fouls – Havre 14, Hamilton 16. Fouled out – None. Three pointers – Havre 4-11 (Lambourne 3-4, M. Mazurkiewicz 0-2, Filius 1-5); Hamilton 5-14 (Rothie 1-1, Goligoski 1-4, Hurlbert 0-1, Albert 0-3, Nye 1-1, Hayes 2-4). Rebounds – Havre 22 (Lambourne 7); Hamilton 22 (Albert 8). Assists – Havre 15 (M. Mazurkiewicz 6); Hamilton 13 (Albert 9). Turnovers – Havre 7 (Filius 3); Hamilton 12 (Albert 5). Steals – Havre 3 (Lambourne 1, Wagner 1, Ohm 1); Hamilton 3 (Goligoski 1, Albert 1, Hayes 1).

Havre 43, Laurel 28 (sf)

Laurel 8 4 5 11 -- 28

Havre 14 5 7 17 -- 43

Laurel -- Lexi Lewis 1-3 0-2 2, Allie McGrath 4-13 8-10 18, Taylor Ludwig 1-1 0-0 2, Dalayna Christenson 1-5 0-0 2, Paige Hodges 0-2 0-0 0, Abbie Lohof 1-4 2-2 4. Totals: 8-28 10-14 28.

Havre -- Brandy Lambourne 5-8 5-8 19, Dani Wagner 1-1 0-0 2, Morgan Mazurkiewicz 3-5 7-9 14, Lacey Waid 1-6 0-2 2, Peyton Filius 1-6 1-2 4, Haley Ohm 1-2 0-0 2. Totals: 12-28 13-21 43.

Total fouls -- LAU 18, HAV 12. Fouled out -- none. Technical fouls -- none. 3-point goals -- LAU 2-7 (McGrath 2), HAV 6-13 (Lambourne 4, M. Mazurkiewicz, Filius). Rebounds -- LAU 26 (Christenson 7), HAV 17 (Waid 3, Filius 3). Assists -- LAU 4 (Lewis 2, Ludwig 2), HAV 11 (Filius 3, M. Mazurkiewicz 3). Turnovers -- LAU 15, HAV 6. Steals -- LAU 1 (McGrath), HAV 2 (Waid, Filius). Blocked shots -- none.