23 Blue Ponies earned All-State this year

The 2016-17 school year offered a lot of exciting sports memories for the Havre Blue Ponies. All year long, there were some great teams, as well as some great athletes on display.

It’s hard to quantify what a great athlete is, but one measurement that seems pretty universal is being named Class A All-State. Becoming an all-stater isn’t easy, in fact far from it. Yet, this past school year, the Ponies had a bunch of athletes that earned the honor. The total number combined, between all sports, ends up at 23 individual Blue Ponies.

Of course, almost half of those All-State honorees were on the Havre High wrestling team, which had 11 wrestlers earn All-State honors, including its five state-champion wrestlers: Parker Filius, Jase Stokes, Quinn Reno, Martin Wilkie and Dane Flammond. The other wrestlers that earned All-State honors were Cameron Pleninger, Ryan Stewart, Lane Paulson, Connor Harris, Mason Dionne and Jared Sienkowski. Filius and Stokes were each four-timers, as well as four-time individual state champions. Flammond also made it three times during his illustrious career. All 11 helped the Ponies win a fifth consecutive Class A state championship.

During the fall seasons of football, volleyball, cross country and golf, the Ponies had four athletes honored. Both Stokes and Isaac Warp made it in football, while Dustin Haas and Teagan Fee each qualified in golf by finishing in the top 15 in their respective state tournaments.

The other winter sports, outside of wrestling, also turned in some All-State athletes, as both Naomi Terry and Kyndall Keller made their way onto the Class A girls All-State basketball team. It was the second selection for Terry, a senior, while it was the first for Keller, which is notable since she was only a freshman. They each helped the Havre girls make the Class A state tournament.

And last but not least, the spring sports season also produced All-State athletes, as Jake Sedahl and Nate Korb earned their way in tennis by finishing runner-up at the Class A state doubles tournament, along with Logan Huebsch, who made it in both the 100 hurdles and the 300 hurdles for track. Joining Huebsch, were her teammates for the 400-meter relay, Katie Wirtzberger, Ireland Coyne and Jessa Chvilicek, who each helped the team reach the podium at Class A state track. Jacey McDonald was also All-State in softball.