Pony girls excited for Saturday's home debut

The Havre High girls basketball team got their season started a week ago, but their season didn’t start quite the way the Blue Ponies wanted. Thankfully, Saturday they will get a chance at a fresh start with their home opener.

After falling to Class B power Malta, 63-39, the Ponies will take on another non-conference foe this weekend. This time it will be Class AA rival CMR and tip-off will be at 5 p.m., inside the HHS gymnasium.

"Our kids are fired up about it (playing at home)," HHS head coach Dustin Kraske said. "They always enjoy playing at home and we usually play pretty well at home, so we are looking forward to it."

It's always motivating for the Ponies when they get a chance to take on a team like the Rustlers, who Havre beat at home a season ago 55-46, but lost to on the road, 54-50.

Like HHS, CMR lost some important seniors to graduation off last year's team, including AA All-State selection Taylor Edwards, who managed more than 15 points per game last season. CMR also graduated Lindsay Martinez, Briana Brown and Talya Vaira. Yet the Rustlers, who are coming off a state tournament berth a season ago, still have plenty of talent, including Courtney Sholvin, Courtney Schroeder and Cailey Froehle.

Froehle is CMR's leading returning score with an average of just 4.2 points per game, but the Rustlers should also get offensive contributions from Mady Skawinski and Addison Gardner.

"It's going to be a good one," Kraske said. "They have a good team. They have a couple big girls and they are pretty talented, so it should be very competitive."

The Ponies have never put much stock in non-conference games. Sure Havre wants to win them, but HHS does not spend a lot of time preparing for teams, at least not as much as it will its conference foes.

Yet, Kraske said no matter the opponent, the Ponies need to play better than they did last Saturday against Malta, when they struggled to score against a tenacious M-Ette defense.

"Part of having a young team like we have is that we need to have our kids grow into their roles a little bit," Kraske said. "I was pleased with how we played in Malta. I think we just need to do a lot better job of communicating. But we have had a great week of practice and I am pretty excited about that."

Two players that do have a lot of game experience under Kraske are senior Dani Wagner and junior Naomi Terry. Both players started and played extensive minutes a season ago and both were among HHS best players in the season-opener, as each finished with a team-high 14 points.

However, if the Ponies are going to knock off CMR, the first thing they will need to do is shoot better. Malta may be a great defensive team, but if Havre shoots 28 percent from the field as they did against the M-Ettes, the season will be a long one. That means other role players such as Marca Herron, Ceyara Plante, junior Kristen Nash and Danielle Wallace need to emerge. All four of those players scored against Malta, but none of them managed more than four points.

"We had some good looks, but we also passed up some shots too," Kraske said. "I think we just need to be more confident. When we get good looks, we need be confident, set our feet and shoot."

Havre will also look to do a better job defensively this week after allowing 63 points to the M-Ettes last Saturday. It may not sound like a ton, but scoring more than 60 points is so rare against the Ponies, that no one had done it since last year's season-opener, when Malta scored 62 at the HHS gymnasium.

"At this point of the year, we are just focused on ourselves and what we can do to get better," Kraske said. "We are just going to do what we are going to do. But, it will give us a chance to get some more experience and let some of our young kids fill their roles a little more."

CMR and Havre will begin their non-conference tilt Saturday at 5 p.m., at the HHS gymnasium.