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Havre's Caden Jenkins takes a shot against Butte Central on Thursday in the Class A State Tournament at Dahlberg Arena in Missoula. Despite the Blue Ponies' best efforts, Havre lost, 61-49, to Butte Central and will now have to play loser-out games for the rest of the tournament. The Ponies played a loser-out game this morning against Polson as they tried to keep their season alive.
MISSOULA - The Havre Blue Ponies have been on a roll this postseason. Unfortunately, they ran into a team that has been on an even bigger one.
Thursday afternoon at the Class A state tournament, the Western A champion Butte Central Maroons, behind a huge game from star scorer Dougie Peoples, took down the Blue Ponies 61-49 inside Dahlberg Arena. The loss dropped Havre into a loser-out game this morning against the Polson Pirates. It also ended a three-game, postseason winning streak by the Ponies, but head coach Walynn Burgess was plenty proud of his team and how they fought Thursday.
"The kids fought hard," Burgess said. "It would have been easy to give up down 23 points, but this team isn't made like that. They have pride, and that showed today because they battled right to the end."
The Ponies opened the game with a 2-0 lead, but the Maroons responded with an 8-0 run, including two 3-pointers from Peoples, who finished with a game-high 27 points. A trey by Josh Currie got Havre close again, but Maroon rattled off seven straight to lead 20-11 after one. From there, Central just continued to inch away from the Ponies. They hit two more threes in the second to lead 36-22 at halftime.
Still, Havre didn't go away without a fight, with Crawford Terry burying a trey at the end of the third and Currie and Tre Gary going back-to-back from downtown in the fourth as Havre did get as close as 12 points midway through. Central, though, was able to salt the game away at the foul line, and behind three double-digit scorers and a 38-23 edge on the boards, advanced to tonight's semifinal against Glendive.
"Give it to Butte Central," Burgess said. "That's a really good team, so well-coached. Really good defensively, and they killed us on the boards today. There's a reason they're 23-1, and they showed that today."
On the other end, the Ponies shot 40 percent from the floor, led by Currie's team-high 11. Terry, Gary, Caleb Spangler and Isaac Pedraza each scored seven for the Ponies, who also hit on six triples and outscored the Maroons in the second half.
"I'm proud of the boys," Burgess said. "This is a great experience, especially for those younger guys we had in there. We're learning a lot from this tournament.
Butte Central 61, Havre 49
Havre 11 11 10 17 - 49
Butte Central 20 16 15 10 - 61
Havre - Josh Currie 11, Isaac Pedraza 7, Xavier Butler 4, Caden Jenkins 7, Caleb Spangler 7, Crawford Terry 7, Shane Patcsil 6, Jevin Jenkins 4.
BC - Bryson Sestrich 8, Drew Badonvich 2, Dougie Peoples 27, Kyle Holter 11, Eric Loos 11, Jack Keely 2, Zane Moodry 2.
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