Have girls basketball ready to get back on the court

After a tough loss to Hardin last weekend, the Havre High girl's basketball team will look to rebound in a doubleheader this weekend. Tonight, the Blue Ponies head on the road to face Fairfield. The Ponies will then return to the friendly confines of HHS Gymnasium on Saturday to face Browning.

The Fairfield Eagles come into the weekend with a 3-3 record this season. While the Eagles have been up and down so far this winter, they have players such as Toryn Martinez and Paige Christensen who are capable of going off offensively. Regardless of the Eagles' record, HHS head coach Dustin Kraske expects them to challenge the Ponies tonight.

"Fairfield's got a really nice program. They've had one for a long time," Kraske said. "It looks like they're pretty much a zone team so it'll give us a chance to work on our zone offensive stuff."

On Saturday, the Ponies will host the Browning Indians, who enter the weekend with a 6-0 record. Mecca Bullchild has been the leading scorer for Browning this season with 16.0 points a game on 40.7 percent shooting. Lish Spoonhunter has also been reliable for the Indians averaging 11.3 points a game on 44 percent shooting. With players like these on the court, Kraske expects a tough fight on Saturday.

"Browning has a wonderful basketball team and it will be another great game in our gym," Kraske said. "We're going to have our hands full. They play a lot of kids, they fly around the floor, they're fun to watch and they rebound like crazy so it's going to be fun."

The Ponies enter the game with a 4-3 record but are coming off a tough loss to Hardin last week. After coming back to take the lead in the second half against the Bulldogs, the Ponies let it slip away in the closing moments. While the Ponies lost, Kraske believes that if they can carry their play in the second half against Hardin into this weekend, they should be able to bounce back.

"I thought our effort against Hardin after the beginning of the game was really good so we'd like that to continue into four full quarters," Kraske said. "When we move the ball offensively, we're also very good so we'd like to continue to do that."

If the Ponies are going to bounce back this weekend, they will need their best players to step up. Amaya Jarvis has been lethal this season averaging 14.6 points a game for the Ponies. Ariana Gary has also contributed with 9.3 points a contest this year.

While the Ponies are only 4-3 this season, they are 3-0 in the Northeast A. With this break from conference play, the Ponies hope to use these games to improve and prepare themselves for conference games down the line as well as the postseason.

"I think the Browning game will be like a postseason game so that will do nothing but prepare us," Kraske said. "We've had great games with Browning for the last few years and we're hopefully trying to make each other better and I think that games like that will only prepare us to do well at the tournament."

The HHS girl's basketball team will tip off against Fairfield on the road tonight at 6:30 p.m. The Ponies will then play Browning at HHS Gymnasium on Saturday at 4 p.m.