Many Pony athletes shined in 2017-18

With the school year coming to a close and the spring sports season finishing a couple weeks ago, it seems like a perfect time to reflect on the last nine months of Havre Blue Pony athletics.

All in all, it was a memorable year for Havre High sports. Of course, no one will forget the Havre High girls basketball team, which went 24-0 and won the Class A state championship, defeating Hardin at the Four Seasons Arena in Great Falls back in March to win its second title since 2014. That group will live on for a long time in Havre for its achievements, which also included the Eastern A Divisional championship. The girls basketball team was also responsible for placing three players on the Class A All-State team in Kyndall Keller, Marca Herron and Danielle Wallace. When it was all said and done, Havre had 23 athletes total who earned All-State honors during this past school year.

While girls basketball was the most successful team from Havre High, it wasn’t the only one to make waves at the state level. On the boys side of the things, the Blue Pony wrestling team failed two win a sixth consecutive state championship, but in the process, the Ponies crowned two individual state champions in Tyler Schaub and Martin Wilkie, in addition to seeing 10 grapplers place including, Mick Chagnon, Cameron Pleninger, Ryan Stewart, Quinn Reno, Marc Ramirez, Lane Paulson, Connor Harris and Mason Dionne. Havre wrestling finished second at state and was the only Havre boys athletic team to earn a trophy during the 2017-18 school year.

Girls basketball and wrestling also represented the two best team finishes by any Havre team and those efforts helped the Ponies finish 13th out of 21 teams in the final standings of the Class A all sports competition put on by Montanasports.com. The only other top-3 finish from any Havre team came from the girls swim team. The boys tennis team also had a solid showing and wound up fourth, but did crown a pair of state champions as Trey Murphy and Kennedy McKay combined to win the Class A doubles title.

Yet, Murphy and McKay weren’t the only state champions to be crowned this spring. The other came via the Havre High track team. In particular, Ivar Aageson won the Class A state title in the 300-meter hurdles. Aageson also placed in two other events at state track, getting third in the 400 and fifth in the long jump. He was joined in earning All-State honors by four members of the girls track team: Katie Wirtzberger, Keller, Jessa Chvilicek and Taylor Torgerson. They made their way onto the list after finishing fifth at state track in the 400-meter relay.

While Havre had 23 different athletes make their way onto All-State teams this season, only two, Aageson and Keller did it in multiple sports. Aageson first earned All-State honors last fall as a wide receiver for the Ponies. Keller, on the other hand, got All-State honors for the second straight year in basketball and also in track, during her first high school season in the sport.

Joining Aageson by earning All-State honors last fall was Teagan Fee, who posted a Top 15 finish in golf, as well as Kadia Miller and Austin Jones, who each made the list in cross country. Havre High’s other All-State performer was Kinzee Peterson, who hit three home runs this past season for Blue Pony softball.