HHS boys brace for a Bison rematch

After snapping a three-game losing skid last Saturday with a win over Livingston, the Havre High boys basketball team will be out to start a new winning streak, and to do so the Blue Ponies will need to knock off Class AA rival Great Falls High.

The Bison will invade the HHS gymnasium tonight to take on the Ponies in the second meeting between the two teams this season. Great Falls defeated Havre 68-58 back on Jan. 2 and will be looking to complete the season sweep. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m.

After taking on the Bison tonight, the Ponies will be off Friday before travelling to Great Falls to go head-to-head with CMR. HHS defeated the Rustlers by a single point in the first meeting in Havre, when Dane Warp hit a free throw with no time remaining to win the game.

“I think our boys are excited to go out there and play both of these teams,” HHS head coach Curt Leeds said. “We want to try and build some momentum and I think if we could get a win this weekend that would give us a lot of confidence.”

The Bison, who come into the game at 5-6 overall, have a slew of talented offensive players that include Lukas Vining, Brendan Howard and Matt Wyman. All three players scored in double figures in the first go around with HHS. Howard led the way with 21 against the Ponies, while Wyman had 19 and Vining had 18. The Bison’s big three scored 58 of 68 total points in the first meeting and that’s why it will be important for the Ponies to do a better job of limiting their effectiveness at the offensive end. One method Leeds will employ to try and do that will be playing more man-to-man defense. It proved to be meddlesome against Livingston last Saturday as HHS held the Rangers to 57 points playing man instead of its normal 2-3 zone defense.

“I think that’s something (playing man-to-man) we are going to do a lot more of,” Leeds said. “Normally, against (Class) AA teams, we have just sat back in our 2-3 zone, but I thought playing man gave us a boost against Livingston, so I think we will use it more than we have in the past.”

While the Bison come into tonight’s game under .500, the Ponies boast an 8-4 record that also includes a 4-2 record in the Central A conference, which is good enough to be tied for first with Belgrade. And as usual the Ponies will be led into action by Warp, the two-time All-State performer, who is averaging 23.8 points per game this season to comfortably lead the Ponies and the Central A in scoring.

However, the Bison did a respectable job of slowing Warp the first time around and held him to 18 points, including just two points in the second half thanks in part to a box-and-one look on defense. That means Havre will need others such as Michael Bakke (9.8 ppg), Jerod Boles (8.4 ppg) and Nate Rismon (9.2 ppg) to step up so the Bison can’t focus all their energy on stopping Warp.

“It’s always a good thing to have balance offensively,” Leeds said. “We are going to need some of those other guys like Bakke, Boles and Rismon to come through and score some points for us.”

Before beating Livingston last weekend, the Ponies had been on a three-game losing streak and part of that can be attributed to the absence of Bakke, who is not only Havre’s second leading scorer but also the team’s leading rebounder with 8.8 per game as well as one of its best defenders.

“We did a lot of uncharacteristic things in those game that we lost,” Leeds said. “So it was nice for us to get everyone back and get back to being ourselves.”

After taking on the Bison tonight, the Ponies will do battle with their other AA rival from Great Falls as they look to complete a season sweep of CMR on the road Saturday. Havre defeated the Rustlers 52-51 thanks to a stellar 34-point performance from Warp. CMR comes into the game at 3-7 overall and while they are struggling to get wins in the AA ranks, the Rustlers are a scrappy team that plays tough defense and will not go down without a fight.

The Rustlers do not possess the prolific scorers of Great Falls High but they do have two very solid players in Karl Tucker, who led CMR with 12 points against Havre on Dec. 13 as well as Andrew Grinde.

But regardless of what happens in these two games, the Ponies will be no better or worse off in the Central A standings. Yet, even though these games mean little in the overall scheme of things, Leeds said he wants his team to gain confidence, while using them each as a chance to improve for the stretch run.

“We have never really put a ton into these non-conference games,” Leeds said. “It would be great for us to get a win or two this weekend but really we just want to keep getting better and use these games as another learning experience to try and improve.”

The Ponies and Bison will kick things off tonight at 7 in Havre. On Saturday, Havre and CMR will get underway at 4:30 p.m.