Havre volleyball set for Sidney tip-off tournament

As the calendar turns to fall, high school sports will make their return to Havre. One of those sports will be Havre High volleyball who will begin their season this fall. But instead of opening the year with a single match, they will compete in the tip-off tournament in Sidney where they will play nine teams across two days. With so many matches this weekend, HHS head coach Stephanie Huse hopes to use them to figure out her roster.

"My expectation this weekend is that we establish a good baseline for where we are," Huse said. "I just want to see what the girls bring when competition stress gets placed on them. So far we've been doing practices, scrimmages but now uniforms are on and you're facing another team and scores are being kept."

This weekend, the Blue Ponies will play against many teams from the Northeast A and Southeast A. On Friday, they will play Southeast teams Livingston, Hardin and Billings Central along with Northeast teams Sidney and Lewistown. On Saturday, the Ponies will then face Southeast teams Lockwood and Laurel and Northeast rivals Glendive and Miles City.

Along with all the Northeast A teams that they will face throughout the season, Huse believes the Ponies' toughest matches this weekend will be against Billings Central and Hardin. Billings Central comes into this fall as the defending State A champions so Havre's match against them should be a good litmus test for where they are as a team. She also believes that Hardin is another high-caliber volleyball team that should be a tough outing this weekend.

"Those two right off the bat stand out to me but all of the teams on the eastern side, I think, are going to be at a level that is going to really challenge us. So it'll be fun playing all of them, really," Huse said.

The tournament format will be a round robin where each team faces each other. The matches between the teams will not have the typical format where they play best three out of five sets. Instead, the teams will play two sets where they will play to 20 points. While this format makes the matches quicker, Huse believes she will still get time to see what all their opponents have this season.

This will be the first tip-off tournament for HHS volleyball in two years after last season's was canceled so this will be the first time that many Ponies have played in this format. As they play in this round robin format for the first time, Huse believes her team will learn the intensity and speed involved with such quick matches.

"They haven't experienced this kind of quick two-set match. They'll learn pretty quickly how fast it goes and how quickly it starts and finishes," Huse said. "The girls are just excited to start playing. Two weeks of practice has been great but it's time to go compete now."

The HHS volleyball team will begin their season with the tip-off tournament in Sidney this Friday and Saturday.