Eagles turn away Blue Pony boys

Every team wants to send out their seniors with a win on senior night and last Friday, the Havre High boys basketball team was no different, hoping to send out its 2018 senior class with a second straight home win.

Unfortunately, Fairfield had other ideas and despite a valiant effort, the Blue Ponies fell to the Eagles 49-39 inside the HHS gymnasium. With the loss, Havre fell to 3-11 on the season and finished with a home mark of 1-8. The Ponies were also supposed to play Lewistown, Saturday, on the road. Yet, poor weather conditions and bad roads led to the trip being canceled. Havre and Lewistown will make up the game at a later date.

"A lot of the same things that have hurt us all year, hurt us again (Friday)," HHS head coach Curt Leeds said. "We had too many turnovers and that led to some easy buckets. We also went back to shooting a lower percentage. I thought that we did a pretty good job of getting shots, we just couldn't make enough of them."

The Ponies got on the board first, thanks to an Ivar Aageson layup, but after that, Fairfield responded with a 13-2 run, grabbing a nine-point advantage. Yet, a 3-pointer by Austin Delarosa kept Havre within striking distance at 13-7. When the first quarter came to a close, Fairfield led 14-7.

Havre played better offensively in the second quarter, in fact, it was the only stanza that saw HHS score in double figures. Trey Murphy got things started with an assist to Tysen Sangrey for an easy hoop. Murphy then knocked down a trey soon after to get the Ponies within six, at 19-13. The Eagles would score eight of the next 11 points, to go back up by 11, but a score on an offensive rebound by Delarosa, as well as a triple from Sangrey trimmed the Fairfield lead down to 27-21. A late three by the Eagles made it 30-21 at the half.

In the third quarter, Fairfield began to separate itself even further. The Eagles started the second half on an 11-4 run and suddenly, the Ponies found themselves trailing 41-25 with 3:24 left. But, a trey by Aageson sparked a 5-0 run to close the quarter, putting Havre down just 11, 41-30 with eight minutes remaining.

The Eagles started strong in the fourth quarter, netting the first five points to push their lead back to 16 with 4:01 left to go in the game. But, Havre had one final run in it. The Ponies got six straight points to cut the lead back down to 10 and when Jacob Irvin hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key, Havre trailed just 46-39 with 1:49 left.

Yet, Irvin's triple proved to be the last field goal for Havre. Fairfield added three free throws in the final minute and went on to win by 10, 49-39.

"We just could never really get that run we needed to get back into the game," Leeds said. "We had that one run in the fourth quarter, but before that, we couldn't really put anything together. It seemed like when we get some buckets, we couldn't get the stops we need and vice versa. We just couldn't put it all together."

Irvin had a strong night in his final home game, scoring a game-high 11 points to lead the Ponies Murphy also contributed with nine points, while Sangrey had seven and Delarosa added five. Ethan Schenk led Fairfield with 10.

The Ponies (3-11, 0-5) will play four straight road games to end the regular season, starting this weekend with road trips to Browning Friday and Rocky Boy Saturday.

Fairfield 49, Havre 39

Fairfield 14 16 11 8 - 49

Havre 7 14 9 9 - 39

Fairfield: Kolbe Pitcher 8, Keeley Bake 9, Ryder Meyer 8, Kenize Christenson 2, Caleb Jergensen 3, Dawson Allen 8, Ethan Schenk 10, Gaise Blackwell 1.

Havre: Jacob Irvin 11, Tommy Brown 2, Ivar Aageson 5, Austin DeLaRosa 5, Tysen Sansrey 7, Trey Murphy 9.