Havre volleyball wins on the road against Browning

Despite a long road trip, the Havre High volleyball team continued to roll with a win in three sets (25-11, 25-15, 25-14) over Browning on Thursday night. HHS head coach Stephanie Huse believes Browning is a much better team this season, so she was impressed by how the Blue Ponies played on Thursday.

"I thought the girls played pretty well," Huse said. "It was a good challenge for us and I thought the girls did a good job of responding to it and having our ball control down the end and our ball control in our serving. Those were the big deciding factors in us winning the match."

Kyanna Jarvis led the Ponies with seven kills in the match while also recording seven digs against the Indians. Avery Carlson had a strong match with three service aces, five kills and six digs. Molly Huse accounted for all 21 assists for the Ponies while Lizzi Haney led Havre with 12 digs in the contest.

The Ponies got it rolling as they jumped out to a 9-3 lead in the first set. The Indians were able to cut the deficit to 10-5, but the Ponies did not let go of momentum as they continued to roll. Over the next few minutes, the Ponies stretched the lead to 20-9. The Ponies eventually closed it out to win the first set, 25-11, to take a 1-0 lead in the match.

Just like the first set, the Ponies got on a roll and never let the Indians take momentum from them. The Indians cut the deficit to single digits, but the Ponies went on to win, 25-15, for a 2-0 lead in the set. Stephanie Huse believes her team's execution and energy helped them jump out to big leads in their sets to pull away for the wins.

"I think our philosophy of being aggressive when we're serving and then just really making sure we're communicating on our serve receive and executing on defense, I think that's it," Huse said. "We know that if we bring the energy and we keep our energy high, we're a lot more successful."

Looking to close out the match, the Ponies jumped out to a 9-3 lead in the third set. Even after the Indians gained some traction, the Ponies got back on a roll and stretched the lead to 20-8. The Indians tried to throw them off, but the Ponies put themselves in position to win with a 24-10 lead.

The Indians scored four straight points to extend the set, but a kill by Jarvis gave the Ponies the 25-14 victory to take the match in three sets. The Ponies had a bit of a lull late in the third set, but after calling a timeout, Huse liked how her team responded to close it out.

"I called the timeout and just told the girls what adjustments they needed to make and they made it right away," Huse said. "That's what's nice about this group, it's that they're very coachable and they respond to the instructions given to them."

With the win, the Ponies improved to 5-0 on the season. However, they still have some miles ahead of them this week as they will next play on the road at Lewistown this Saturday. After another strong win early in the season, Huse wants her team to move on quickly to focus on the Golden Eagles.

"We know that we need to have a short memory that doesn't always last so we need to be proud of what we did but we need to turn around tomorrow when we wake up," Huse said. "It's (Lewistown) and we have to be ready to focus on them and what we need to do against them on Saturday."

The HHS volleyball team will play at Lewistown this Saturday at 4 p.m.

Havre def. Browning

25-11, 25-15, 25-14

HAV - Aces 7 (Avery Carlson 3, Emilee Chambliss 2, Molly Huse 1); Kills 25 (Kyanna Jarvis 7, Yelena Miller 5, Carlson 5); Assists 21 (Huse 21); Blocks 3 (Chambliss 2, Miller 1); Digs 31 (Lizzi Haney 12, Jarvis 7, Carlson 6).