It's a Blue/White Weekend at Havre High

It will be some time before September comes around, which has been deemed the new start to the fall season for the Havre High football and volleyball teams, but do not worry, the two teams will get to have some fun this weekend.

Tonight and Saturday is when the annual Blue/White Day for the Blue Pony football and volleyball scrimmages will take place. Tonight will see the football team take the field at 6 p.m. at Blue Pony Stadium, followed by the volleyball team taking the court Saturday at 3:30 p.m. in the Havre High Gymnasium. But, fans will not be able to attend the scrimmages due to COVID-19 restrictions and safety concerns.

Havre High activities director Brian Kessler said fans can't be in attendance at the scrimmages this weekend but they can still see the action.

"There will be no fans allowed entry to the football or volleyball Blue/White scrimmages this weekend," Kessler said. "They can watch scrimmages on the NFHS Network. Information on how to access that is on the Havre High activities page."

Having no fans in attendance will certainly feel odd for the football and volleyball teams, but there will still be plenty of fun to have this weekend. Havre football head coach Ryan Gatch is excited to see his team get out on the field and compete Friday night.

"Scrimmage this year will be a little different, since we have moved it to Friday night," Gatch said. "Normally we have it on Saturday night, but we've been able to adjust our schedule based on the fact that we don't play a game next week. We can give the players more time off so they can rest and recover after a full week of practice this week. That way we can be able to get after it. We're really looking forward to Friday night. It's going to be a little different since we're not going to be able to allow fans to the place, but that's what the MHSA said, so it is what it is. The guys are excited to get playing, we'll mix up the teams so they're even, so we can get out after each other and it should be fun. It'll be real similar to what we did last year."

Blue Pony football will once again have high hopes of making some noise again this year, especially after making their first postseason appearance in four years in 2019, making it to the quarterfinals after stomping past the Lewistown Golden Eagles at home in the playoffs.

As for what Gatch will be looking for in his players Friday night, he wants to see great work come out of the scrimmage.

"We get pretty competitive out there," Gatch said. "Of course, the goal is to get better, stay healthy and put us in position to beat Laurel here in a couple of weeks. I want the players to play around, have fun and represent the Blue Ponies, man. It'll be a lot of fun for everybody. Our expectations for the players is that they will go out, give it their best effort, have a ton of fun doing it and at the end of the day, they can be proud of their play when they watch it on film."

After the Friday night scrimmage at Blue Pony Stadium, Blue Pony volleyball will get to rock the Havre High Gymnasium, which is something that volleyball head coach Steph Huse is looking forward to.

"Blue/White this year is going to look a little different," Huse said. "I think in the past they've split the up and had a blue team versus a white team, but we are going to do that in a little bit of a different way. After having that practice and not having another game until a couple weeks after that, we've decided to take some time and figure out exactly what we're doing with our rotations. I'm just getting familiar with the girls, what positions they're strong in, what makes sense and what our most successful options are for what we're going to do this season. I'm going to mess around with lineups. There's about two or three different lineups I'm looking at. We're just going to play around with it and have some fun with it, as well."

This revised format will give returners like seniors Sydney Wilting, Kennedy Hampton, Quinn McDonald, Ellen Collins and Talia Ralph some much-needed reps, while younger players like Yelena Miller and others an opportunity to hone their skills, as well.

The 2020 Blue/White Day schedule will see football take the field tonight at 6 p.m. at Blue Pony Stadium, followed by volleyball the next day on Saturday at 3 p.m. in the Havre High Gymnasium.