HHS spikers head to Electric City Classic

The 2016 season has not started the way the Havre High volleyball team had hoped it would. But, it’s still early and with a number of matches before the finishing stretch in conference play, the Blue Ponies still have plenty of time to right the ship.

This weekend, Havre will get a chance to see just how far its have come as it will travel to Great Falls to take part in the Electric City Classic, one of the toughest high school volleyball tournaments in the state of Montana. Havre will see a number of Class AA opponents starting on Friday and continuing through Saturday.

The Ponies will play a total of five matches Friday in pool play and who HHS plays Saturday, will depend on its results. Havre will start its tournament at 10:45 a.m., Friday against Great Falls High. Following that match, the Ponies will take on Billings West, Missoula Big Sky, Helena Capital and Butte High in succession.

“We know that we are going to see some really good competition,” HHS head coach Tameica Jarvis said. “We just have to focus on ourselves and getting better. We need to fix our hitting errors and control the things that we can control. That’s going to be our focus this week.”

The Ponies who are now 0-2 in regulation matches for the season, (2-4) overall, went winless last weekend in Belgrade, dropping conference matches to Livingston and Belgrade, before losing five straight matches the next day in the Windy City Classic.

As Jarvis alluded to, a big issue for the Ponies this season has been unforced errors and in the two matches against Belgrade and Livingston, Havre had nearly 60 hitting or service errors.

“I am not sure what happened,” Jarvis said. “But mentally, we were not ready to play in Belgrade. So that is something I take responsibility for and we have done some different things in practice and changed things around to try and fix that.”

If the Ponies are going to turn things around this weekend, one player that will need to play a vital role in that is Jacey McDonald, who is leads the team in kills with 34 and is also second on the team in assists with 40. She also leads the team in blocks (11.5), which also ranks second in the Central A.

McDonald currently ranks sixth in the Central A conference in kills, while teammates Paige Nelson (31) and Claire Worm (24) are seventh and ninth respectively. Other key contributors for Havre so far have been Alex Barkus, who is third in the Central A in assists with 52 and Emliee Cariveau, who is third in the conference in blocks with nine. Kiara Christianson is also 10th in the Central A in blocks with four.

“I think everybody on the team just needs to find their role,” Jarvis said. “I think we are just thinking too much and we just need to get back to being aggressive.”

While Jarvis said the competition will be tough in Great Falls, she said it will be a great chance for her team to improve early in the season.

The Ponies will open the Electric City Classic Friday morning at 10:45. They will play four more matches Friday and an undetermined amount Saturday based on their record.