HHS girls looking to rebound on the road

IIt was not an ideal start to the 2014-15 season for the Havre High girls basketball team. But after having a week to stew about their uncharacteristically tough loss to Malta, the Blue Ponies are ready to right the ship with a pair of Central A conference showdowns on tap this weekend.

Havre will start its weekend of basketball tonight when the Ponies pay a visit to rival Belgrade. The game will start at 6. Then, Saturday, HHS will travel to Livingston to close out its two-game trip. The contest between the Rangers and Ponies will tip-off at 2 p.m.

"Belgrade and Livingston both have brand new coaches, so that will be an interesting thing for us because in the past you had a pretty good idea about what the programs were going to do x's and o's wise," HHS head coach Dustin Kraske said. "Livingston is senior led and Belgrade is always competitive, so we are going to have to go down there and do our work."

Belgrade comes into the game against Havre sporting an 0-1 record after losing to Dillon last week. They are led by two players that earned postseason honors in the Central A last season. The first is Alexis Clingingsmith, who earned Second-Team All-Conference honors last season. The other is Erin Singleton, who was named honorable mention.

So far this season, Singleton has been the top scorer for Belgrade, averaging 13 points through two games, while Clingingsmith, on the other hand, has struggled mightily going just 1-for-16 from the field, including 0-of-9 from beyond the arc.

"Belgrade has Clingingsmith back, who is a nice basketball player that does a good job of driving to the basket. They also have Singleton back, who is very, very fundamentally sound," Kraske said. "So we are going to have our hands full with those two. But they are both guards, which will help us out a little bit."

The Ponies, who lost 62-41 to Malta last Friday, will be looking for senior guard Morgan Mazurkiewicz to play a key role against both Belgrade and Livingston after scoring a team-high 20 points against the M-Ettes. Havre will also be looking for another solid performance from Dani Wagner, who notched 10 points and 10 rebounds in Havre opening loss.

Yet, after Morgan Mazurkiewicz and Wagner, the Ponies struggled to find offense. And HHS had issues with more than just scoring, it also had difficulty taking care of the basketball as Havre finished the Malta game with 22 turnovers. The Ponies also shot just 11 percent from beyond the arc.

"You are not going to be able to shoot 11 percent from the 3-point line and 33 percent from two and turn it over 22 times and be successful," Kraske said. "The first thing we need to do is value the ball a heck of a lot more. Take care of it better. Make better passes and come meet the passes. The fundamental things of what we do. And then primarily, we need to shoot with more confidence. We just seemed nervous and hesitant."

In addition to limiting turnovers, the Ponies will also be looking for other players to step up and give them a spark offensively, such as Tori Mazurkiewicz, Lindsey Kudrna, Naomi Terry and Ceyara Plante.

After squaring off against Belgrade, the Ponies will head down the road to take on Livingston on Saturday in another battle of Central A teams. Like Belgrade, are 1-1 and will be led into action against Havre by senior guard Megan Schoenen, a First-Team All-Conference selection a season ago.

Schoenen did not play for the Rangers last weekend in Butte where they started their season, but Kraske expects her to be in uniform this weekend. In Schoenen's absence, Sierra Higgs took control of the Ranger offense and scored 25 points in two games.

"Livingston has Schoenen. She didn't play last weekend, but she is a very good player," Kraske said. "They are a veteran team and they kind of like to mix things up defensively. So we are going to have our hands full and it's never easy to win on the road, especially in the conference."

Havre and Belgrade will get things started tonight at 6. Saturday, the Ponies and Rangers will tip things off at 2 p.m. After the holiday break, the Ponies will host Great Falls High Jan. 2 and travel to Malta Jan. 3.