Blue Ponies look to keep improving in Great Falls

The Havre High volleyball team got its season off to a positive start last weekend and with the Electric City Classic on tap for this weekend, the Blue Ponies will look to continue their stellar play.

And just like last weekend in Livingston and Belgrade, the Ponies are going to square off against some difficult competition. The Electric City Classic is held in Great Falls and will see games played at both Great Falls High and CMR. The tournament also features a full lineup of Class AA teams, seven of which will play Havre on Friday. The first game for HHS will be Friday at 10:45 a.m. against Great Falls High.

“Hopefully the girls will respond positively and play their game,” HHS head coach Tamecia Jarvis said when asked about the difficult competition. “I’m hoping this will raise our level of play. I think at the Windy City tournament, we played down to our competition a little bit and not up to our level. So I want to see if we can get our level of play up and just learn some consistency and playing at a high level at all times.”

Yet, after winning just a handful of games a season ago, the Ponies already look much improved as evidenced by their win over Livingston and a more competitive than usual loss to Belgrade. HHS also knocked off Lewistown, Butte Central and Browning in conference group play at the Windy City Classic, proving that the Ponies have what it takes to win.

With that said, Jarvis is still looking for her team to improve.

“I felt like our first game against (Livingston) was awesome, we had a lot of communication and we played really hard,” Jarvis said. “Against Belgrade, the first two games were really great and then we just kind of fell off. But, there wasn’t a single ball that hit the ground without someone going after it, so the hustle factor was there, we just have to work on the consistency.”

And with the difficult schedule that lies ahead of the Ponies in group play Friday of the Electric City Classic, HHS will find out plenty about its level of consistency. In order, Havre will square off against Great Falls High, Billings West, Missoula Big Sky, Helena Capital, Butte High, Billings Skyview and Glacier.

“Our serving is something we need to improve on,” Jarvis said. “We had a lot of serving errors last weekend. So, hopefully that will improve. We also need to work on our free-ball passing. A free ball is like a gift, so we need to get the ball to our setter, our target and try to take advantage of it and that just isn’t happening. Once we get that free-ball passing down, we can move our hitters around a bit. We also need to do a better job on defense. We need to get better around the block and covering our hitters also.”

If the Ponies are going to make it to the championship side of the bracket Saturday instead of being in the consolation bracket, they will need a big performance from senior All-State performer Dani Wagner.

Wagner is a versatile player that was among the Central A conference leaders in a number of categories, she will play a key role for Havre, as will fellow senior Reggie Bernard. Bernard earned Second-Team All-Conference honors a year ago as a blocker and her presence around the net will be vital to Havre’s success

The Ponies will also count on Naomi Terry, Madison Huebsch, Jacey McDonald, Sammy Huston, Claire Worm, Megan Erickson and Ceyara Plante to play key roles.

“I think we are doing a lot of good things,” Jarvis said. “I am seeing good things, especially with the hustle, we just need to work on being more consistent.”

The Ponies will get their journey at the Electric City Classic on Friday at 10:45 p.m., against Great Falls High. After the first day, teams are separated into championship and consolation brackets, then the team’s compete in best 2-of-3 game matches in a single elimination format to determine the winner of each bracket. That will take place throughout the day Saturday.

Havre def. Livingston

Havre - Kills 37 (Dani Wagner 17, Namoi Terry 8), Assists 27 (Wagner 13, Terry 12), Aces 13 (Wagner 4, Madison Huebsch 3, Terry 3), Digs 20 (Huebsch 12), Blocks (Reggie Bernard 3).

Belgrade def. Havre

Havre - Kills 27 (Dani Wagner 11, Reggie Bernard 8), Assists 28 (Wagner 10, Naomi Terry 9), Aces 6 (Madison Huebsch 5), Digs 18 (Huebsch 6, Megan Erickson 6), Blocks 5 (Jacey McDonald 3, Bernard 2).