HHS boys aim to ground Eagles

After a bit of a mid-season slump in which it lost four of five games, the Havre High boys basketball recovered in a big way with a last-second road win over Class AA CMR last Saturday. Now with two more contests on tap this weekend, the Blue Ponies are looking to keep the positive momentum going as they inch closer and closer to postseason play.

Havre, which enters the weekend at 9-5 overall and 4-2 in Central A conference play will look for its second straight win tonight when the Ponies play host to Class B foe Fairfield inside the HHS gymnasium. Then, the Ponies will hit the road for the final time in conference play this season on Saturday, when they travel to Lewistown for a critical Central A showdown.The start time for tonight's game against Fairfield inside the HHS gymnasium is set for 7.

Fairfield will come into Havre tonight sporting a 5-8 record overall following back-to-back losses last weekend to Browning and Rocky Boy. Yet, even though the Eagles have struggled this season, they are an experienced club that boasts five returning starters from a season ago in Dru Oveson, Dalton Palmer, Trevor Schenk, Tanner Mayer and Joel Beck.

"Fairfield has a couple of good seniors between (Dalton) Palmer and (Trevor) Schenk," HHS head Curt Leeds said. "They are both pretty good players. Trevor is their biggest player. I see them playing us in some type of zone, a 2-3 or a 1-2-2 trapping zone, so if we can just take care of the ball and rebound we should be sitting pretty good against them."

Taking care of the ball is always a big key to winning basketball games and it's something the Ponies have done fairly well this season with an average of just 13 turnovers per game. Another big reason for Havre's success this season has been the play of junior Dane Warp, who leads the team and the Central A in scoring with an average of 23.4 points per game.

Warp is coming off a clutch performance against CMR, in which he not only scored the game-winning basket after connecting on a 2-point jumper with 15 seconds left but also scored 23 points in the game to help engineer a two-game sweep over the Rustlers, a Class AA rival. While Warp is the player that makes the Ponies go, Havre relies on a number of other players including senior forward Michael Bakke, who is averaging 8.4 points per game to go along with 8.6 rebounds per game, which is tops in the Central A.

However, beyond Warp and Bakke, who provide a stellar inside-outside presence for Havre, the Ponies have also gotten important contributions from point guard Jerod Boles (8.3 PPG) as well as Nate Rismon (8.9 PPG), Jacob LaBrie (4.3 PPG), Jase Kato (2.3 PPG) and Wyatt Lindbloom (2.8 PPG).

"We view this game as another opportunity for us to get better," Leeds said. "Every week we tried to find something that we can do to get better and this week we have really been focusing on improving our spacing, so that is something we are going to focus on but other than that we just want to play as well as we can and try to be better."

After taking on Fairfield tonight, the Ponies will turn their attention to the more important game of the weekend as they travel to Lewistown for a critical game in the Central A. Currently, the Ponies are 4-2 in the league and trail first-place Belgrade by a half game. The Panthers own the tiebreaker over HHS, so a loss by the Ponies to Lewistown, which is 1-4 in league play, would put Havre out of the running for the regular season title and top seed at the divisional tournament.The Eagles, on the other hand, are still just one game behind both Livingston and Browning and if they can find a way to upset Havre, they could potentially work their way up as high as the third seed come tournament time.

"It's an important game for us," Leeds said. "We still want to get that No. 1 spot and we are not going to be able to do that unless we can get a win against Lewistown."

A key player for the Eagles that Havre must contain is Morgan Ray, who averages 13 points per game and is one of the top perimeter shooters in the conference. Another player the Ponies will need to keep in check is James Derheim, who averages 9.4 points per game. Hunter Errecart, who averages 5.9 points and 5.4 rebounds per game as well as Jace Davis, who averages 3.9 points and 5.9 boards per night are others players Havre must contend with.

"We really need to make sure Lewistown doesn't get a chance to get going from outside," Leeds said. "(Morgan) Ray is a very good player, he scored 27 points against Malta and hit five 3-pointers, so we need to make sure we keep him in check and make him put the ball on the floor. After that it's just about rebounding and taking care of the ball. I believe if you out rebound teams and limit turnovers, you are going to have a chance to win almost any basketball game."

Havre will kick off its weekend tonight against Fairfield at 7 before traveling to Lewistown on Saturday to do battle with its conference rival. That game will tip-off at 6 p.m.