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Blue Ponies suffer a home heartbreaker

Eagles trump Ponies in a dramatic night at Blue Pony Stadium

Football is a game of emotion, with momentum constantly changing back and forth. Against Sidney, the Havre High football team felt both the emotional highs and lows of football on a roller coaster night.

In a memorable affair that went down to the final seconds, Sidney squeaked out a win by the smallest of margins with a 14-13 victory over Havre at Blue Pony Stadium Friday night.

The game, which was close throughout, turned on a couple of key plays late in the fourth quarter.

The first turn came with the Eagles facing a third-and-nine at the Havre 32-yard line with just minutes remaining. Quarterback Gresh Jones found Tyler Quilling for 22 yards, setting Sidney up with a first-and-goal at the Havre nine.

Two plays later, the Eagles hit pay dirt. On third-and-goal from the six, Jones found Cody Johnson for the touchdown, putting Sidney ahead 14-7 with just 2:01 to go in the game.

"We had been running the football, that is our main game plan, but we made some big plays down the stretch and that was a really great catch," said Sidney head coach Rodger Merritt.

Facing an adverse situation, the Ponies refused to go down without a fight.

Sophomore tailback Parker Filius responded right away for Havre, taking the ensuing kickoff 43 yards to give HHS great field position at the Eagles' 47-yard line.

Havre quarterback Dane Warp started the final drive with an 11-yard completion to Kody Pribyl. Then, after a costly personal foul on the Eagles advanced the football to the Sidney 16, HHS was faced with a third-and-five at the Sidney 10 with just 22 seconds left as HHS searched for its first win of 2014.

Despite pressure in his face, Warp rolled to his right, threw across his body and found younger brother Isaac Warp in the end zone for a 10-yard touchdown pass with just 13 seconds left in the game.

The Pony crowd erupted, sensing overtime and a dramatic come-from-behind win.

But it wasn't meant to be.

The Eagles were able to apply heavy pressure up the middle on kicker Gunner Aageson, and as a result, the point after attempt went wide to the right, cementing the one-point win for Sidney.

"It didn't come down to a kick," HHS head coach Jason Christenson said. "We had some penalties and some turnovers that killed us. We just came up short."

One such turnover came on the first drive of the game, when the Havre offense was marching down the field. After five consecutive completions for 73 yards on thr opening drive, Logan Thiel made the first game-changing play of the day, when he intercepted Warp and kept HHS from striking first.

From that point, the defenses dominated and the game remained scoreless into late in the second quarter. With 3:32 left in the first half, Trace Jones of Sidney made another critical play, diving and intercepting a Warp pass, giving the Eagles the ball at the Havre 39.

Seven plays and 39 yards later, the Eagles scored on a one-yard touchdown run by Thiel that put them ahead 7-0 with less than a minute to go in the first half.

Yet, Havre would not trail for long. On the opening possession of the third quarter, Sidney was forced to punt and after a fumbled snap, the Eagles turned the ball over on downs to the Ponies at their own 44.

From there, the Ponies went to work. After a seven-yard run by Filius, Warp connected with Pribyl on a 34-yard pass and two plays later Filius scored from two yards out to tie the game at 7-7 with 8:36 left in the third. The stage was set for a dramatic fourth-quarter finish.

"Havre is a good football team," Merritt said. "They are hard to keep out of the end zone, and I think they are going to end up being pretty good this year."

The Ponies came into the game facing the vaunted running game of Sidney but the Eagles only managed to rack up 151 yards on 51 carries.

"We really focused a lot coming on their running game," Christenson said. "I thought our coaches did a great job this week, and we were able to keep them from getting a lot of big runs."

Leading the way for the Ponies in the losing effort was Warp, who completed 21-of-30 passes for 225 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. The top receiver on the day for the Ponies was Kody Pribly, who hauled in five passes for 82 yards. Filius also had 50 total yards and one touchdown.

Defensively, Jase Stokes led the way for Havre with 13 tackles. Filius also added 11 tackles, while Tyrell Pierce had seven tackles and a sack for the Ponies.

HHS dropped to 0-3 on the season with the loss, while Sidney improved to 3-0.

The Ponies will look for their first win of the season when they travel to Glendive this Friday.

Sidney 14, Blue Ponies 13

Sidney 0 7 0 7 – 14

Havre 0 0 7 6 – 13

SID – Logan Thiel 1 run (Kick Good)

HAV – Parker Filius 1 Run (Kick Good)

SID – Cody Johnson 6 pass from Gresh Jones (Kick Good)

HAV – Issac Warp 10 pass from Dane Warp (Kick failed)

Havre Statistics

Passing – Dane Warp 21-32-225.

Rushing – Filius 10-19, Dane Warp 7-10, Pribyl 2-6.

Receiving – Kody Pribyl 5-82, Alec Drew 5-39, Loftus 4-34, Filius 3-31, Isaac Warp 2-39.

 

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