The young Havre High girls basketball team has been playing well this season, but is still trying to fine tune their game before the postseason tournaments. And that doesn’t always mean a smooth road.
Over the weekend, the Central A Blue Ponies had one of their calmer weekends of the season, with just one nonconference game. Friday night, the Ponies were on the road in Conrad. The Conrad Cowgirls were able to defeat the Ponies 40-39 in a very tight matchup.
HHS knew going into the contest that the Cowgirls could be a dangerous team. They are well coached, have talented athletes always seem to give the Ponies a run on their home court. This proved to be especially true since earlier in the season, the Ponies defeated the Cowgirls 68-38 in Havre.
This time around the Pony offense didn’t produce the same numbers as they watched an early lead slip away.
Havre held an 11-6 lead after the first eight minutes. And heading into the lockerroom at halftime, the Ponies got out to a 22-14 lead over the Cowgirls.
But the second half went in favor of Conrad, as they outscored the Ponies 26-17 in the final 16 minutes of play. The Cowgirls got a real nice boost in the third, posting 16 points in the frame.
Conrad got solid scoring all around. Rashelle Johns led with nine, others also turned in totals of eight, seven and six points.
For Havre, Peyton Filius led with 11 points, while Brandy Lambourne added nine. All of Lambourne’s points came on 3-point field goals. And four other girls scored for Havre and combined for the remaining 18 points.
Havre went into the weekend’s contest with the goal of improving and focusing on themselves. The nonconference loss doesn’t hurt the Ponies' Central A record of 6-1, but it does drop their overall record to 11-7 on the season.
The Blue Ponies will look to keep moving forward this weekend with their final regular season game. Saturday the Ponies will host the conference rival Browning Indians at 5 p.m. at the Havre Central Gym.
Conrad 40, Havre 39
Havre 11 11 10 7 — 39
Conrad 6 8 16 10 — 40
Havre — Brandy Lambourne 9, Jaclyn Evans 5, Morgan Mazurkiewicz 4, Peyton Filius 11, Chanal Standing Rock 6, Neya Bischoff 4. Totals 13 9-14.
Conrad — Hayley Orcutt 8, Makayla Berringer 1, Erica Grubb 7, Taylor Judisch 2, Morgan VanDyke 6, Jayde Richardson 7, Rashelle Johns 9. Totals 16 8-14.
Total fouls: Havre 17, Conrad 18. Fouled out: Judisch. Technical fouls: none. 3-point fieldgoals: Lambourne 3, Filius.
