Blue Ponies turn away Cowgirls at home

The Havre High girls basketball team might not have put its best foot forward against the Conrad Cowgirls Thursday night inside the HHS gymnasium. But, when you win, you never have to complain and the Blue Ponies shouldn't after their triumph over the Cowgirls.

For the second straight meeting between the interclass opponents, the Havre defense dominated. And even though the offense wasn't necessarily hitting on all cylinders, the Ponies were good enough to win their ninth game of the year by beating the Cowgirls 53-33. HHS is now 9-6 overall and 6-0 in the Central A conference.

At the start of the game, Conrad had ideas of hanging around and making it competitive. Yet, Naomi Terry had other thoughts and broke out for an 11-point first quarter. Terry nailed a 3-pointer to open the scoring for the Ponies and later knocked down another trey to put HHS in front 10-8.

Even after six quick points, the junior wasn't done. First she notched a steal, which she converted into two points and as the final buzzer sounded at the end of the stanza, she banked in a triple to give Havre a 15-8 advantage.

The run continued in the second quarter and after buckets by Ceyara Plante and Danielle Wallace, as well as a hoop by Dani Wagner, Havre led 21-9 and was in the midst of a 16-1 run.

"Naomi was coming off of a bit of a tough weekend," HHS head coach Dustin Kraske said. "So it was good to see her come out and play well. That was something that we were looking for out of her."

However, from that point, the Ponies struggled to score in the remainder of the first half and the Cowboys closed the half on an 8-2 run to creep back into the game at 27-15.

"I know sometimes emotions are weird on senior night and things like that," Kraske said. "But our effort defensively in the first half was not very good. We also didn't do a great job of taking care of the basketball."

In the third quarter, Conrad cut into the Havre lead even more and following a hoop by Emily Harwood, and a 6-0 spurt by the Cowgirls, the Ponies' advantage had shrunk to 27-21. Yet, the Ponies responded right in the nick of time.

First, Wagner scored to push the lead back to eight points, then Terry scored six of the game's next eight points, with the last bucket coming after a steal, which put Havre in front 35-23.

"We came out of the time out there in the third quarter and got a little spark," Kraske said. "I was very pleased with the way that we played defensively in the second half. We know how to play defense. We do it a certain way in this program and there are no excuses not to play defense that way and in the second half, I thought we did a much better job."

Despite being down by double digits once again, Conrad refused to go away and cut the lead all the way down to eight points. But, a deuce from Wagner and a trey minutes later, extended the lead to 46-31 and put the win on ice for HHS.

Terry and her three triples led the way for the Ponies as she finished with a game-high 18 points. Wagner also contributed with 12 on senior night, while Danielle Wallace added eight and Plante finished with five.

Conrad had just one player reach double figures in scoring in Harwood, who finished with 11 points. Andrea Russell also pitched in with eight.

Havre will be back in action next Friday when the Ponies head to Lewistown. The Ponies will also travel to Rocky Boy next Saturday in non-conference action.

Havre 53, Conrad 33

Havre - Ceyara Plante 5, Ryen Olson 2, Dani Wagner 12, Naomi Terry 18, Marca Heron 6, Danielle Wallace 8, Kyley Verploegen 2.

Conrad - A. Van Dyke 4, Andrea Russell 8, P. Nelsin 4, Emily Harwood 11, D. Van Dyke 4, J. Johns 2.