Perfect Ponies pummel the Eagles

If you are going to beat the Havre High girls basketball team, at some point you are going to have to withstand a run by the Blue Ponies and Saturday night inside the Havre High gymnasium, the Golden Eagles of Lewistown simply couldn't hold up to another Pony stampede.

Early on in the first quarter, the Eagles hung with the Ponies and the score was 7-7. However, after a 28-3 run, Havre put the game out of reach and won its 40th straight thanks to a 72-34 blowout of its long-time Central A rival. The Ponies are now 16-0 on the season.

"I thought our kids played well," HHS head coach Dustin Kraske said. "Senior night is kind of funny. It gets emotional and it was emotional for those three seniors (Abbey Morse, Kassidy Compton, Lauren Kato) as it should be. They have had wonderful careers at Havre High. Lewistown was really scrappy early but I thought our kids played very well. I was very pleased."

Lewistown was scrappy enough to stick around with Havre early and managed to tie the score at 7-7. Yet, a jumper by Kyndall Keller and four straight points by Jessa Chvilicek made it 13-7. Keller scored seven more points before the end of the opening stanza, including a 3-point play and after one, Havre led 22-9.

In the second quarter, freshman Sadie Filius continued the run with a bucket of her own. Then, Kadia Miller, who scored a game-high 21 points, added four straight, which was followed by a hoop by Katie Wirtzberger. At that point, the Ponies led 35-10, thanks to an incredible 28-3 scoring run that saw Lewistown score just once from the field, which was due in large part to a suffocating full-court press applied by HHS. At the half, it was 38-14 Ponies.

"Our pressure is going to hurt a lot of teams," Kraske said. "And I thought our kids did a great job with it."

The offensive blitz by the Ponies continued into the third quarter and reached a fever pitch when senior Abbey Morse banked in a 3-pointer that put the Ponies in front 43-19. A jumper from Kylie Walker late in the third pushed the lead to 52-23 and a trey by Filius early in the fourth made it 64-28, before Havre finally forced the mercy rule upon the Eagles by extending its advantage to 40 with a pair of Compton free throws with under two minutes to go.

When it was all said and done, Miller led all the scorers with a game-high 21 points. Keller added 14 and Chvilicek, as well as Filius, each scored eight.

"Not to single out Kadia, but boy, she had a tremendous night offensively," Kraske said. "She did a really great job with offensive rebounds, but my favorite part of her game is doing what she did, while also guarding their best player, that Anna Zimmer, and holding her to limited points. That was my favorite part of her effort with our team."

With the win, Havre completed its second consecutive perfect regular season at home and also finished undefeated in the Central A once again at 6-0. The Ponies will close out the regular season this week with a road game against Browning Thursday, as well as playing at Fairfield Saturday.

Havre 72, Lewistown 34

Lewistown 9 5 9 11 - 34

Havre 22 16 14 20 - 72

Lewistown - M. Mangold 2, K. Gordon 5, L. Jenness 12, K. Nelson 4, A. Montgomery 2. S. Olson 4, A. Zimmer 3, K. Zimmer 2.

Havre - Kyndall Keller 14, Kylie Walker 4, Kassidy Compton 2, Loy Waid 5, Abbey Morse 3, Kadia Miller 21, Jessa Chvilicek 8, Sadie Filius 8, Katie Wirtzberger 3, Britton Paulson 2.