George Ferguson
Havre Daily News sports editor
gferguson@havredailynews.com
Just one week into the 2005-06 high school swimming season, the Havre High swim team will get to stay home this weekend. The Ponies will host the 2005 Havre Invitational swim meet at the MSU-Northern pool on Saturday afternoon.
Both the HHS boys and girls teams are coming off a solid showing at the season-opening Flathead Invite last weekend in Kalispell. The Havre High girls captured second-place honors and the HHS boys were fourth. Both Kalispell teams are in the meet in Havre this weekend and both easily captured their own invite last Saturday.
“Kalispell has two very strong teams this season,” HHS head coach Chris Inman said. “They looked very strong last weekend.”
Aside from Kalispell and Havre, there will even more stiff competition in the pool on Saturday. The field also includes Great Falls High and CMR, and Inman points out that both schools have good swimming programs.
“The Great Falls High Lady Bison have an excellent girls team,” Inman said. “And even though the CMR boys have some new kids on the team, they are already looking very strong this season. They will be very tough to beat.”
Rounding out the field on Saturday will be teams from Harlem and Great Falls Central.
“I think we have a very competitive meet,” Inman said. “There are some very good girls teams and there are also some outstanding boys teams, so there should be some really exciting races.”
Both HHS teams should be included in Inman's assessment of the field. The Havre High girls got a very balanced performance from the entire team last Saturday in Kalispell. The Blue Pony relay teams were especially effective. Havre placed multiple teams in each of the relay events.
The Havre High boys also looked sharp in Kalispell. Like the girls, the boys relay teams were particularly effective last Saturday. And Havre also got a standout day from Michael Hauser in the individual sprints.
“I was extremely pleased with how all of our kids swam in Kalispell,” Inman said. “Everybody we took down there swam faster times than they did at the state meet last season. That makes this season look like it should be a really good one and it shows me that we have two very strong teams.”
The Havre Invite will begin at noon and should run until about 4 p.m. All of the action will take place at the MSU-Northern pool.
