Blue/White Day kicks off fall sports season

The official start of the high school fall sports season took place this past Saturday with the Blue/White day for Havre High School. Over the course of the day, the HHS volleyball and football teams competed in their scrimmages to prepare for the upcoming fall season.

The day started in the morning with the blue/white volleyball scrimmage at Havre High Gymnasium. The white team, which consisted of mostly varsity players, went on to win the scrimmage match, 3-1, by scores of 25-12, 25-20, 21-25 and 25-19. But the final score was not important as the Blue Ponies were happy to be back on the court after their offseason.

"It was really exciting," Molly Huse said. "It's really nice to be back on the court with all (my teammates). They're like my sisters."

Not only did the players finally get to see some game action this fall, but HHS head coach Stephanie Huse got to see where her team is at to start the season.

"I saw a lot of good things and I saw a lot of things we need a lot of work on," Huse said. "It's just a really good baseline to see where we're starting."

Early on in the match, the white team demonstrated its experience with a strong start in the first set. After scoring the first three points of the set, the white team continued to play well to stretch the lead to 18-6. The blue team, which was mostly made up of junior varsity players, tried to claw its way back, but the blue team cruised to a 25-12 victory in the first set to take a 1-0 lead in the scrimmage.

The blue team was given a 6-0 lead to start the second set to make it more competitive and force the white team to face some adversity. The blue team then started the set with two straight points to build the lead to 8-0.

But the white team demonstrated its experience to claw its way back into the set. After the white team tied the set, 13-13, the blue and white teams exchanged points and the lead. With the set tied, 17-17, the white team scored two straight points to take the lead. The blue team cut the white team's lead to 21-20, but the white team scored four straight points to win the set.

Heading into the scrimmage, Huse wanted to see how well her team had mastered the schemes they had been working on in camp. While there is plenty to work on, Huse believes the Ponies have a strong grasp of the schemes.

"I thought the girls were executing what we wanted them to," Huse said. "There's definitely some fine-tuning that we need to make on everything such as our serve receive and defense but I thought that we were definitely following through with what was expected."

Just like the second set, the blue team started the third set with a 6-0 lead. The blue team then opened the set with three points to build a 9-0 lead. Like the previous set, the white team fought back to cut its deficit to 16-15.

But unlike the second set, the blue team held onto the lead. After the white team cut the lead to 21-20, the blue team went on a 5-2 run to win the set 25-12 and cut the white team's lead to 2-1 in the match.

Like the previous two sets, the blue team had a six-point lead to start the fourth set. But the white team went on a 10-5 run to cut the deficit to 11-10. The white team then scored five straight points to take a 15-11 lead in the set. The blue team tried to keep up, but the white team held on to win the set, 25-19, to end the match with a 3-1 victory.

The HHS volleyball team will now head into the season, beginning this weekend with the tipoff tournament in Lockwood. After several weeks of practice, playing an actual scrimmage should help the Ponies heading into their season.

"It gives us game-like situations. You can practice them as much as you want but when you're actually facing an opponent and have your uniform on, it's a totally different scenario," Molly Huse said. "It really gets us prepared for the season and our upcoming matches this week."

The Blue/White day ended later that night with the HHS football team competing in its blue/white scrimmage at Blue Pony Stadium. In his first blue/white scrimmage as the head coach of the football team, HHS head coach Jake Eldridge believed the Ponies played with effort.

"They competed hard," Eldridge said. "The big thing that we wanted to be able to see from these guys is if they could come out here and not have a lot of coaching in between plays and take what they've learned from the last two weeks here and just put it in a competitive situation, and I think that they did that."

The scrimmage got started with the first-team offense driving against the second-team defense. On the opening play of the drive at midfield, starting quarterback Kale Vancampen completed a pass to move the team down the field. After all the hard work in the offseason, Vancampen was finally able to put it on display on the field.

"It felt good to get back out here," Vancampen said. "We've been working hard all through camp, all through lifts in the summer and we've been working really hard through the spring."

The offense then used the ground game to get yards. Later in the drive, Vancampen ran the ball himself to make it first and goal. Tate Nelson then ran the ball in for a touchdown to cap off the first drive of the scrimmage. Unfortunately, the special teams failed to make the extra point.

On the next drive, the second-team offense tried to move the ball against the first-team defense. Second-string quarterback Ciaran Courtnage was able to connect with a receiver for a first down. But after that, the offense could not move the ball and the drive ended with the defense getting a sack on Courtnage on fourth down.

The first-team offense had another strong drive against the second-team defense. Vancampen connected with another receiver for a first down. A few runs and another completion from Vancampen then got the offense to the goaline. But on fourth and goal, the offense was held out of the endzone and the possession went back to the second-team offense.

Both offenses had another possession but neither could put a drive together before halftime of the scrimmage. After halftime, the Ponies mostly focused on running special teams drills such as punts and kickoffs throughout the third quarter.

The fourth quarter mostly saw the younger players get reps on offense. Griffin Terry got snaps at quarterback and led the offense on multiple drives. On many plays in the fourth quarter, Terry demonstrated his legs as he scrambled for several yards.

But after a stop, the second-team offense got back on the field. After a couple of incompletions, Brisbin Reiter ran the ball for about 70 yards for the touchdown to end the drive. The third-team offense responded with a strong drive of their own, including a touchdown run to end the scrimmage.

The HHS football team will now look ahead to its season opener against Sidney on the road this Friday. While he liked what he saw from his team in the scrimmage, Eldridge knows there is plenty to work on if they want to be ready for the season.

"We just need to sharpen everything up," Eldridge said. "We need to be better on both sides of the ball with a lot of different things at every position and then, hopefully, we get to build our depth."

The HHS volleyball team will next play in the tipoff tournament in Lockwood this weekend to start the season. The HHS football team will play in its season opener this Friday at 7 p.m. on the road against Sidney.