Blue Ponies take on Eastern A rivals

After a promising start to the 2015 volleyball season, the Havre Blue Ponies are flying high and will look to continue their winning ways this Saturday in Lewistown.

However, the Ponies, who normally travel to Lewistown to play their Central A rivals, will actually be playing in a pair of non-conference match ups against Laurel and Hardin. Yet, even though the matches are technically not conference matches, both Laurel and Hardin could be part of the Eastern A divisional, which Havre is hoping to be a part of at the end of the season.

"These are non-conference matches," HHS head coach Tamecia Jarvis said. "But there is a possibility that we could see these teams at divisionals this season, so we want to go down and get a look and see how we stack up against them. So I am looking forward to that and hopefully coming away with some wins if we can keep playing the way that we have been playing."

Havre, which is 2-1 so far this season in regulation matches, has spent much of the early season playing in tournaments, as they competed both in the Windy City Classic and the Electric City Classic to open the season.

Yet, the Ponies do also own wins over both Livingston and Conrad, while their one loss was to Belgrade, the defending Class A state champion, in straight sets back on Sept. 4. Havre has also played tough against a number of Class AA opponents, while also notching wins over teams like Browning, Lewistown, Butte High and Butte Central in tournament play.

"We just want to make sure that we keep working hard in practice," Jarvis said. "We have been working really hard on our hitting and getting our plays so that when we get a free ball, we are actually doing something with it instead of just hitting a high ball or something, just trying to mix it up, things like that."

One reason why the Ponies have had success so far this season has been the outstanding play of senior hitter/setter Dani Wagner. Wagner, who earned All-State honors last season, has been even better for HHS in 2015 and through three matches, she has a total of 37 kills and 37 assists, which is an average of more than 12 per game for each stat.

However, Havre has a number of other talented players such as Naomi Terry, who is second on the team in assists with 31 in three matches. Reggie Bernard, who Second Team All-Conference a season ago, has also been one of Havre's most effective hitters and one of its best defenders around the net.

Jacey McDonald, Madison Huebch, Megan Erickson, Claire Worm, Ceyara Plante are others that have consistently contributed to the Havre effort in one fashion or another so far this season.

Right now, the Ponies have a couple of objectives: they are trying to win, but they also want to keep this newfound momentum going, both of which they will look to do Saturday against Hardin and Laurel.

"We just need to keep working hard in practice," Jarvis said. "Practice is supposed to be the hard part and the games are supposed to be easy, so as long as we keep working hard in practice, the games should be easy,"

Havre will take on Hardin at 10 a.m., before going head-to-head with Laurel later Saturday afternoon. The Ponies make their long-awaited home debut next Friday night against Lewistown.