Ole Goat Memories: The night Cory went crazy on the Bison

There have been a lot of great basketball players in the history of Havre High, but only a few have ever scored more than 40 points in a game and the name at the top of that list is Cory Brothers.

The Blue Ponies will travel to Great Falls Thursday to take on Great Falls High in an attempt to win back the Ole Goat trophy for the first time since 1991. And that opportunity brings to mind another great chance the Ponies had to win the trophy, only this one came back in 2003, following quite possibly the greatest single-game performance in the history of Havre basketball.

The date was Jan. 10, 2003 and the location was the HHS gymnasium. The Ponies came into the game against the Bison sporting a 4-4 record. It was an important game and there was definitely electricity in the air. But nobody, not even Brothers, who would set the school record with 51 points, knew what was on the horizon.

"I had been struggling a little bit," Brothers said. "The only thing I remember was just knowing I was going to play well. Not like that. I didn't think I was going to do what I did, but I knew I was going to come out of the slump I was in and so I came out firing. That was my plan, just to get it up there."

Brothers, who is undoubtedly one of the most physically gifted players to ever don a Pony uniform, got off to a slow start that night but, soon, his slump would be nothing but an afterthought.

"I remember I came out and I missed my first couple of shots," Brothers said. "But then I made a couple, I think it was back-to-back and I made one really tough shot and it was on from there."

After missing his first attempts from the field, the HHS junior went nuts. Not only did he score all 16 of Havre's first-quarter points, he connected on four 3-pointers and threw down one of the most memorable dunks the Pony Corral has ever seen. Trailing 13-11 with a minute left in the first stanza, point guard Trent Normandy threw up a perfect alley-oop and with his patented hops, Brothers jumped up and threw it down. The fans went nuts and so did Normandy.

"The play was called blue and it was actually something that we ran quite a bit," Brothers said. "(The crowd) was pretty cool. It has happened quite a few times but that time (the crowd) was pretty crazy. Actually, now that we are talking about it, I remember I went back and watched the film a couple of times and Normandy I think, went more nuts than half of the crowd did. It was good feeling, I remember going nuts.

"I have been to a lot of Blue pony games," Normandy said. "And I never heard that place so loud in my life. I was a very emotional player and we just wanted to get the game started off right."

The play, which is one still used by current HHS head coach Curt Leeds, is one that Leeds said he now calls "Brothers" in honor of the man that made it work so perfectly.

"I remember throwing quite a few lobs up to Cory," Leeds said. "But when you can jump like he could, you pretty much just had to throw it up there and you knew he would go get it. It's kind of funny. We still run that same play all the time for Dane (Warp) and we call it Brothers, in honor of Cory."

The ferocious dunk seemingly blew the lid off the gym and at the same time tied the score at 13-13. Then, less than 20 seconds later, Brothers hit another triple, his fourth of the quarter, putting Havre in front 16-14. 16-point quarters are pretty rare, but even after that, Brothers wasn't done, in fact he was far from it.

"I just remember telling myself the whole game just to keep calm," Brothers said. "I didn't want it to get in my head and I didn't want to over think it. I knew I was on fire but I just wanted to go with the flow and keep playing. I was always a streaky shooter and I had been hot before and lost it, so I just wanted to keep calm and you know you don't want to get too amped up, it affects your shot."

In the second quarter, Brothers continued his hot streak. He drilled two more treys and scored 11 points total, which gave him 27 points at halftime, while Havre clung to a 44-39 lead. Then, in the third quarter, he hit his seventh and eighth 3-pointers of the game as HHS extended its lead to 59-51 with the fourth quarter left to play.

"When someone has a hot hand in the game, you want to make sure he touches the ball every time down the court," Normandy said. "But, we really did not change our game plan. We just got the ball to Cory and he did the rest.

"One thing I remember," Leeds said. "We all knew he was our best player and we tried to get the ball to him as much as we could. But in that game, we never once felt like he was being selfish at all. He just couldn't miss from outside and it was one of those things, he was just on."

In the fourth quarter, the Ponies put the finishing touches on an important victory. HHS went on a 10-0 run early in the stanza, a run that included Brothers' ninth trey, to push their lead to 70-55. Yet, the Bison ripped off 13 of the next 14 points to get back within three at 71-68, with less than two minutes to play. At that point, Brothers and the Ponies put the game on ice. He made some key free throws that kept the Bison at bay and with the game in hand, Brothers put one final exclamation point on his magical night.

As time was running out, Brothers gained possession of a loose ball and thundered home an emphatic dunk on the other end, that not only got him to 51 points, but gave Havre the 80-73 victory.

"It was a good feeling," Brothers said. "Back then, it was really hard to beat (Class) AA teams and that was the only time in my four years that we did it. We went 1-15 against them. That win was also important for us because back then, we used the point system and that win put us into a tie for first-place in the conference."

Of course, every Havre player, including Brothers, knew he had a spectacular game, but none of them knew just how spectacular it was until afterward.

"I remember thinking that he had a 20 or 30-point game," Leeds said. "I don't think even Cory realized how many he scored. Then, coach (Mark) West came into the locker room and told us Cory had 51. We had no idea.

"I didn't realize he had 51 until after the game," Normandy added. "It's incredibly hard. Most high school teams don't score 51 points, so for one person to do it was amazing."

Brothers' 51 points did indeed set the Havre High record, besting a 45-point game that Jason Wirt had back in December of 1992 and the 45 points once scored by Pony legend Loree Payne. Since then, the record has stood the test of time, with only Warp coming within range as he scored 43 points earlier this month against Rocky Boy and 41 last season in a game against Belgrade.

"That's cool," Brothers said of being the only Havre player to reach the 50-point mark. "I didn't know that. I never had a 40-point game before that in high school. I had some 30-point games but never any like that one. My senior year, we had some really good younger kids, so we blew a lot of people out. I remember one game against Lewistown. I scored 37 points playing only the first and third quarters. I was joking with (assistant coach John) Barnhorst and told him to get (coach) West to put me back in so I could try to break my record, but he wouldn't."

En route to his 51 points, Brothers put together a shooting performance that is unrivaled in the annals of HHS basketball and on that night, he finished 9-of-14 from beyond the arc and 10-of-11 from the free-throw-line.

"Dane (Warp) has had a couple of games close to that," Leeds said. "But Cory is definitely the best player that I have every played with. And I would have to say it was the best game in (Havre history) just because of how important it was to us that season. We hadn't beat many AA teams at that time."

While Brothers’ night in the Pony Corral will always live on, his presence on the team also helped the Ponies reach heights they hadn't for quite some time and haven't since. Havre would go on to win the Central A regular season title that season, only to fall short of the Class A state tournament thanks to a loss at the Central A Divisional tournament. Yet the next season, Brothers led Class A in scoring with more than 19 points per game and finally that year, the Ponies made it back to state.

In doing so, the 2004 team captured the Central A Divisional championship and also finished third at the state tournament, bringing home the first trophy in basketball since the 1994 state championship team.

But for all of that team's accomplishments, Brothers still wishes he could have delivered Havre a state championship.

"I remember we won divisionals and played really well in our first game at state," Brothers said. "Then, we played Libby in the semifinals. We were beating them basically the entire game.Then I don't know what happened, but we lost it in the last couple minutes. I remember we were down by three points and I had a half-court shot, straight on to tie it. I shot the ball and I thought to myself it was cash, but it didn't go in. It was a real bummer deal."

The Ponies didn't win the Ole Goat back that season and maybe they won't Thursday night either. But there is no doubt that, when it comes to the rivalry between Havre and Great Falls, no individual has ever done it better than Brothers.

"The thing I have always loved about basketball is that one person could win a game by himself," Brothers said. "Not by himself, but basically, one player could take over a game. I always thought that was really cool and that night, I guess it took me doing that for us to finally beat them."

Brothers, who also went on to play for Montana State University-Northern and later the University of Great Falls in the Frontier Conference, is still one of the most accomplished basketball players this town has ever seen. And on that night more than 13 years ago, he ensured that his legacy would stand the test of time.

"I would have to say yes," Brothers said when asked if that was his greatest game. "I had some great games in college and some other good games, but I think because of who it was against, it has to be my best game. If I would have done it against Chinook or somebody like that, maybe not, but because it was against Great Falls High and because it meant so much, I'd have to say it was my best."