Pony boys after a senior night win

The Havre High boys basketball team may be finished with the Central A conference portion of its schedule, but this weekend, the Blue Ponies will play their final two games before divisionals.

And both contests will come against familiar faces. Havre will first host Browning tonight inside the HHS gymnasium. The season two teams met earlier this and will meet again on senior night for Havre with tip-off time for 7 p.m. Then, the Ponies will travel to Fairfield Saturday to take on a team they played just last week. Tip-off in that game is scheduled for 5:30 p.m.

"Browning is a really tough team," HHS head coach Walynn Burgess said. "They have some really talented kids and so that is going to be a challenge for us. But both of these games are going to be tough. Fairfield is a really good team, and playing them on the road will be tough, but we just look at it as a chance to continue to get better."

While tonight will serve as a chance for two old Central A rivals to at it with Browning and Havre, it will also give the Ponies a chance to honor its three seniors: Tommy Brown, Austin Delarosa and Tysen Sangrey.

"I really can't say enough about these guys," Burgess said. "Tommy is a really unselfish player, he's one of the most unselfish guys that I have ever coached, and you can see that because he is one of the leaders in the state in assists. Austin Delarosa, he has been a key guy for us especially on defense all year. He's one of our top defenders and he's just a great leader and someone you can always count on. Tysen is the same way. He's a great leader and he brings a lot of greaat energy to our program. We are going to miss all those guys."

Against the Indians, the three seniors and the rest of the Ponies will get a chance to put their skills to the test against one of the top teams in Class A boys basketball as the Indians will head into the Pony Corral sporting a 15-1 overall record and a 9-0 mark in the Northwest A.

Tyree Whitcomb leads the way for the Indians, with a scoring average of 17.8. Riley Spoonhunter also averages over 12 points per game, but those are the only two individuals who average in double figures for the Indians, who score 69 a game and managed 80 in the first matchup with Havre.

The Ponies will enter today's game averaging just over 52 points, and their leading scorer is big man Kellen Detrick, who is averaging 13.5 points and 7.9 rebounds. Detrick is particularly dangerous on the offensive glass, where he averages more than 2.5 boards per game. Jake Huston is also having a solid season for HHS, averaging 9.7 points, followed by Brown, who averages eight. Sanrey comes in scoring 7.3 points a game and Delarosa is averaging 6.1.

"Browning is one of the teams that has a good chance to be there at the end in Class A," Burgess said. "And it's going to good to get a chance to build some confidence against a team like that going into divisionals."

Havre will then turn around and take on Fairfield. The Ponies led the Eagles by double digits last week at the HHS gymnasium, before the Fairfield team, led by Keeley Bake took over the game and went on to win by double digits.

"Playing on the road against another good team, that will be a good test for us," Burgess said. "We definitely want to win these games but we are also trying to build towards next week and play our best basketball."

Regardless of what happens this week, the Ponies will wind up as the third-place team in the Central A conference. They are 7-9 coming into the contest against Browning and will head to Billings for the Eastern A Divisional tournament next week.