Daneil Horton Havre Daily News cpeterson@havredailynews.com
After a busy schedule last weekend the Havre High volleyball team is right back at it again. On Friday the Blue Ponies travel to Great Falls, where they will hope to build on their overall record of 2-2, while competing in the Electric City Classic over the weekend. Last weekend, the Ponies swept Livingston in three games with scores of 25-10, 25-14 and 25-10. And Belgrade beat the Ponies by scores of 27-25,21-25, 17-25, 25-19 and 15-13. The Ponies also played in the Windy City Classic last Saturday where they went 3-1 in pool play, and then lost in two games against Lewistown in their first round of tournament play. The Eagles beat the Ponies 22-25 and 8-25. “I wasn’t disappointed in our weekend last week, but I thought we could have done things a lot better than we did.” Havre head coach Bill Huebsch said. “Especially in the conference match that we gave up against Belgrade.” Pool play in the Electric City Classic, hosted by GFH and CMR begins Friday morning at 10 a.m. and the Ponies are scheduled to get going at 10:45 a.m. against the Bison. The rest of the Ponies pool play continues with Billings Skyview at 12:15 p.m., Missoula Hellgate at 1:00 p.m., Helena Capital at 2:30 p.m., Bozeman at 4 p.m., Billings Senior at 6:15 p.m. and finally they wrap things up with Glacier at 7 p.m. Based on the Ponies' record in pool play, they will be put in one of two brackets. The top four teams from each pool play in a champions bracket, and the bottom four teams from each will be put in the consolation bracket. The champions bracket starts at 10 a.m. Saturday morning at GFH, and the consolation bracket also gets started at 10 a.m. at CMR. HHS has the ability to hold their own in this tournament, but they need to have better team play than they had a week ago. Last week they had a lot of serving errors, and gave up runs of points. . “It was just a lot of unforced errors and a lack of communication on the floor.” Huebsch said. “And I am hoping that maybe this is another chance to erase some of those problems that we have been having. “There are only so many drills you can do.” Huebsch added. “Eventually it’s going to come down to desire and will, and then just wanting to push through and fight harder for that point.” With two days of competition ahead of the Ponies, they will have plenty of opportunities to get better and put their poor play behind them. But the competition they will be facing will be the strongest they have seen this season. In their pool are defending AA champions Billings Senior and Hellgate who has a 6-3 girl in the middle. It will be tough, but when the Ponies play to their strengths and stay consistent, they can play with the better teams in their conference and even in the state. “Our pool has a lot of good teams in it and, it is going to be great experience for us to be able to play good competition for two days.” Huebsch said. “We need to serve tough like we can do. A best defense is a tough serve, and I just want to see us get better this weekend, play consistently, and get consistently better.” The Ponies have been practicing hard this week not only in an effort to fix past mistakes, but also to build on their strengths. Karla Hellegaard and Sarah Blessum continue to show improvement in practice, and they are getting stronger every day. But for the Ponies to be a successful, dominant team everybody needs to step up. “We have a lot of growing to do. Lewistown is the team to beat, not only in our conference but in our state.” Huebsch said. “If we want to see ourselves going to state with them then we better start playing better than we have been.” The Ponies are going to get a lot of court time this weekend, and win or lose it is another building block towards conference play. The Ponies get started in the Electric City Classic Friday morning at 10:45 a.m. in Great Falls.
