Havre High golf teams hitting the home stretch

By Havre Daily News Staff

Following a busy August, things started to slow down for the Havre High varsity golf teams. But the race to the postseason is finally on.

And that race starts with Friday's Sidney Invitational, where the Blue Ponies, of head coach George Ferguson, will play against mostly the same field they'll see Sept. 26 when Havre is back at the Sidney Country Club for the Eastern A Divisional Tournament.

"This 18 holes in Sidney will be very important for our kids who make the divisional roster," Ferguson said. "Obviously, I want them to play well and win, or finish as high as they can. But I think it's even a bigger deal just that we get to play the course before divisionals. That's huge for these kids because when we get back there at the end of the month, they'll be a lot more familiar with it."

Havre last played at last Thursday's match play triangular in Harlowtown, but before that, the Ponies had been off since the Aug. 24 Browning Invitational so, outside of practice, they haven't had a lot of time on the course.

"We played a lot of golf early on," Ferguson said. "But, with Labor Day, that kind of puts a gap in the golf season's schedule. So we have to really use these next two weeks to fine tune and start peaking. That's the goal. Use these next three tournaments to really start getting primed for divisionals."

While the Havre divisional teams won't be set in stone until next week, the Ponies have been getting some strong performances on both the boys and girls sides. Juniors Caleb Chambliss and Josh Warp have been the leading scorers for the boys team for much of the season, while newcomer Caleb Spangler has also played well for his first season of high school golf.

"I really think Josh and Caleb have improved a ton this year," Ferguson said. "I watched them the last two years, and their games have really grown. They're doing a great job. The interesting thing about our boys team is we have eight or nine kids that are really close together. They all can put up some good scores, and I think that's created a really competitive environment in practice, so it will be very intriguing to see how our divisional team shakes out when we do our final qualifying next week."

The Pony girls have been led all season by junior Jocelyn Staples, but Ferguson noted that,sophomore Sophie Kirkpatrick has been improving all season, as has newcomer Carlee Kato, and freshman Sylvie McKeon-Hanson. The divisional roster will also include either Mia Valdez or Katherine Greenwood, two more newcomers to the golf team.

"My goal for this girls team has been just to have them focus on improving every day, every round," Ferguson said. "I just haven't been too concerned with where they finish or anything like that. I have wanted them to just stay focused on getting better. And I think they've done a great job of that. I think they've done a great job of just working on their individual games, and it will pay off for them at the end of the season."

The end of Havre's season is not too far off in the distance now. After Friday's tournament in Sidney, the Ponies will travel to Billings and Laurel next week to wrap up the regular season.

"Time is winding down," Ferguson said. "It's getting close now. So these next two weeks are big for these kids. These next two weeks, the goal will be to get their games in the best possible shape for the divisional tournament. The kids have been doing a great job at that already. I'm really proud of all of them. But these next two weeks, it's going to be really big for what we want to accomplish in the postseason."