Blue Ponies look to ground Eagles in season-opener

The Havre High football team is finally back as the Blue Ponies kick off the season tonight. The Ponies head on the road to face the Sidney Eagles as they try to start the season on the right foot. As the Ponies head into the first game under new head coach Jake Eldridge, he expects to see them compete in a physical game tonight.

"It's going to be a tough ball game. Sidney is a well-coached team," Eldridge said. "The kids are always really disciplined and they play hard so I'm expecting it to be a hard physical game and I'm hoping our guys can go out there and be physical and compete their butts off."

If tonight's game is a repeat of last year's matchup between the Ponies and the Eagles, it should be a thriller. In last year's season opener at Blue Pony Stadium, the Ponies survived a defensive slugfest to win, 12-7, against the Eagles. As they head into this year's matchup, though, Eldridge knows that whatever happened last year will not matter.

"It's a completely different year, a completely different season with two completely different teams," Eldridge said. "We lost a lot of really good football players from last year's team so we've got an opportunity for guys to step up."

The Eagles return several players from last year's squad. Zander Dean should be a player to watch tonight on both sides of the ball. Last season, he earned second team all-conference honors as the Eagles' quarterback. But when the Sidney defense is on the field, Dean will also be a problem after he earned first team all-conference honors as a defensive back last season.

Another player the Ponies will need to watch out for on defense is Chace Waters. The junior is coming off a season where he earned first team all-conference honors as a defensive lineman. With another year under his belt, Waters should be even better this season for the Eagles.

"He's a Division I recruit type of kid. He has that kind of talent," Eldridge said about Waters.

Sidney comes into this season after finishing last season with a 4-5 record in the Eastern A to qualify for the playoffs. As the no.7 seed out of 12 playoff teams, the Eagles defeated Dillon, 17-14, to open the postseason. The Eagles season then came to an end with a 39-28 loss to Lewistown in the quarterfinals.

Eldridge taking over the Ponies comes a season after they went 3-6 and missed the playoffs. The Ponies will try to reverse their fortunes in hopes of playing more football at the end of October and into November. That quest will start tonight as the Ponies try to start this season 1-0. Regardless of what happens against Sidney, Eldridge wants to see his players battle through adversity and compete hard to start the year.

"Just understanding that we're not going to be successful every single play and understanding how to compete, how to come back and continue to play hard and play a full 48-minute ballgame and finish," Eldridge said. "Competing play in and play out is going to be something that we can look at and if we can do that, then we can be happy with whatever the results are going to be."

The HHS football team kicks off the season tonight at 7 p.m. on the road at Sidney.