Blue Ponies look to continue Northeast A dominance

The Havre High girls basketball team has made it look easy the past few weeks, winning six straight games. The Blue Ponies have won five of those games by double digits, demonstrating why they were state champions last season.

Now, the Ponies hope to keep up their strong play this weekend when they head on a road trip to conference opponents Glendive and Sidney.

"We'd like to play well and play together," HHS head coach Dustin Kraske said. "The expectations we have every weekend are going to pretty much be the same. We expect to travel well and do a good job."

The Ponies start their road trip tonight against the Glendive Red Devils. The Devils have yet to pick up a win this season with their 0-9 record and 0-3 conference record. Last month, the Ponies defeated the Devils, 54-21, at the Havre High Gymnasium.

The Devils will need their best players to go on a tear if they want to compete against Havre. Codi Nagle leads Glendive averaging 11.2 points and 7.7 rebounds a game. In their last meeting against Havre, Nagle led Glendive with nine points. While the Devils have not won yet this year, Kraske expects them to give the Ponies everything they got.

"They play well together and play hard. We would expect them to play a little bit better at home like everybody does," Kraske said.

The Ponies will then head to Sidney Saturday to face the Eagles. The Eagles are 2-8 this season and are 1-3 in conference play. The Ponies defeated the Eagles, 69-26, at HHS Gymnasium last month, so they will be looking for a repeat of that performance.

Sophie Peters will try to make an impact for the Eagles as she leads the team with 11.8 points and 9.2 rebounds a game. But in her game against the Ponies, the Havre defense limited her to five points. Taylen Hensen and Jenna Anderson led the Eagles with six points each against Havre last month, so they will need to improve on those performances. But Kraske believes if the Eagles are going to give Havre trouble, it will be through their defense.

"I thought in our gym, they did a really nice job of making us adjust to their pressure. They did a little different zone press than what we have seen during the season and I thought they did that well," Kraske said.

The Ponies are 8-1 this season and are at the top of the Northeast A with a 4-0 conference record. Yelena Miller has had an excellent year for the Ponies as she leads the team with 12 points and 7.4 rebounds a game. Avery Carlson is also playing well averaging 11.4 points a game, while senior Sadie Filius also shines. Since their games against Glendive and Sidney, Kraske believes the Ponies have improved and hopes to continue seeing that this weekend.

"I think we're better defensively for sure. I think our kids have really bought into that. I think offensively, we're trying to throw some wrinkles into what we do and that has given our kids a challenge in practice to try to think through that," Kraske said.

While he expects Glendive and Sidney to have improved as well, Kraske feels confident the Ponies can repeat how they played the first time out against these teams. But if they are going to do that, they will need to keep up the defensive pressure and control the tempo on offense.

"I thought our kids did a tremendous job putting pressure on the basketball and we're going to do some different things against both teams this weekend," Kraske said. "We'll have to understand that the possessions are what matter and we have to continue to strive to have the best possessions we can and then quickly move on to the next possession as the ball changes over or vice versa."

The Ponies will start the weekend tonight in Glendive. The Ponies will continue their road trip in Sidney Saturday.