Pony Extra: Pink Day at HHS

For those who don't know, October is breast cancer awareness month and if the any of the fans were wondering why the Havre High volleyball team was sporting pink jersey's Saturday night in its home match against Conrad, that would be the reason why.

For years, sports teams from all ranks: professional, college and high school, have been donning pink to show their support for the fight against breast cancer. But starting last season, the Blue Ponies took their show of support to a whole new level, as they upgraded from pink shoelaces and hair ties, to pink jerseys.

"We just got those jerseys last year," HHS head coach Tamecia Jarvis said. "Before that, in my first year, we had pink shoelaces, but last year Mr. Murphy (HHS activities director) got those for us. It's something that people do across the country. We used to do it at Northern, so we decided to do it here also."

While it's not unusual in October to see pink worn at sporting events, not many teams are being as active in the cause as Havre, which Jarvis said will wear the jerseys at every home match for the rest of the month.

"We will wear them for the entire month at home," Jarvis said. "And we might even wear them on the road. We will have to figure out what we want to do there. I haven't seen a lot of other teams doing things yet, but it's still early in the month. But hopefully, we will see a little more as we travel."

Ponies ace the competition

Hitting is always important in volleyball and it's an area of the game, where the Blue Ponies have been inconsistent this season. In terms of kills and overall hitting percentage, Havre ranked last in the Central A coming into play this past weekend.

Being able to put the ball away or kill it, is obviously a pretty important part of volleyball. But, with only Havre senior Camyrn Huston, ranking among the top 10 in kills in the Central A conference, Havre was going to need points to come elsewhere. And while ideally, those points would come from around the net, for the Ponies, those extra points have come from the service area.

Prior to taking on Cut Bank and Conrad, the Ponies were leading the Central A with an average of 3.3 aces per set. Yet, this weekend in its two matches, the Ponies totalled 40, which equates to nearly seven aces per set. HHS finished with 13 against Cut Bank, before racking up a season-high 27 against Conrad or an average of nine aces per set.

"We are leading the conference in aces and 27 is the most that we have gotten while I have been here," Jarvis said. "We just need to try and reduce our misses. I do think that we serve pretty tough, but we do need to try and keep those misses to a minimum. But as long we keep getting as many points off them, I am ok with some of the misses we are having."

Sam Oliver, who has 50 aces for the season, is leading the Central A, while her teammates Alex Donaldson, Katie Donaldson and Logan Huebsch are not far behind her. All rank in the top-10 in aces in the Central A conference.

"I think that we have focused more on it this year and trying to teach them good places to try and serve the ball," Jarvis said, "so I think that has helped us a lot. It has been an emphasis for us and it's paid off, but I would like to see our overall serve percentage go up."