STATE TOURNEY TIME: Ponies peaking on their way to state

It's always a good thing to be peaking in the postseason - and despite finishing third at the Eastern A Divisional, the Havre High girls basketball team has to feel it's doing just that going into this week's Class A state tournament.

The Blue Ponies will join seven other teams that will meet at the Belgrade Special Events Center, Thursday to start the three-day process of crowning a state champion. The first game will tip off at 1 p.m., Thursday. Havre will play its first game at 2:30 p.m. that same day against Columbia Falls.

"Right now, we are playing really well," HHS head coach Dustin Kraske said. "Some of our younger players have really stepped up and are playing better than they have all season. So we are going in with a lot of confidence."

If the Ponies (14-8) are going to take down the Wildkats (19-2), who won the Northwest A during the regular season and finished second at the Western A Divisional, they will need that confidence to shine through on the court. Yet, having a player like Dani Wagner should make it much easier, because you know with her, you always have a chance.

Wagner, who has been one of Class A's biggest stars all season, took her game to another level at divisionals, scoring more than 20 points a game as HHS won three of four games to advance to the state tournament for a fifth consecutive season.

"Dani is just playing at such a high level right now," Kraske said. "She is just such a competitor. She does whatever it takes to win and I think the biggest thing for us right now, is that she's making her teammates play even better."

With a scorer like Wagner, and another like Naomi Terry, who was eighth in the state in scoring during the regular season with 12.33 points per game, the Ponies are a team with plenty of potential. Especially if players such as Kristen Nash, Ceyara Plante, Danielle Wallace and Marca Herron play as well at the state tournament as they did at divisionals.

"I think it's just a culmination of all the things that we have been working on all year," Kraske said. "It just kind of all started to come together. Those kids are playing with a lot of confidence right now."

However, Columbia Falls knows a thing or two about confidence. After all, the Wildkats lost all of two games during the regular season and one of those was in the Western A Championship, against Butte Central, the prohibitive favorite to win the state title.

While the Maroons are the favorite to take home the first-place prize this weekend, the Wildkats are viewed as one of the few contenders to knock them off. Columbia Falls doesn't have any individual players on the level of Wagner, but it does have a dynamic duo of its own in Kiara Burlage and Peyton Kehr. Burlage was the sixth overall scorer in Class A this season with 13.67 points. Kehr was just outside the top 10, but did average 11.06 points a game to give the Wildkats two reliable scorers.

"Columbia Falls is a really solid basketball team," Kraske said. "They are well-coached and they have a lot of experience at the state tournament. But we feel good about how we are playing right now. It's going to come down to who can execute and who can do the little things well."

The winner of the matchup between Havre and Columbia Falls will advance to the semifinals Friday night at 7 p.m., against the winner of Browning-Frenchtown. Browning is the top seed from the Eastern A; Frenchtown is the fourth seed from the Western A. On the other side of the bracket, Billings Central, the No. 2 seed from the East, will go head-to-head with Dillon, the third seed from the West at 7 p.m. The nightcap will feature Butte Central, the Western A champion, against Lewistown, the fourth-place team from the East. That game will tip off at 8:30 p.m.

The second semifinal game will be played at 8:30 p.m. Friday. The consolation game will take place Saturday at 6:30 p.m., with the championship game to follow at 8 p.m. All of the action this week at the state tourney takes place at the Belgrade Special Events Center.