Winter won't leave Havre High spring sports alone

Spring sports at Havre High have had a bad run of luck when it comes to weather in recent years. And so far this spring, that luck hasn't changed for the Blue Pony teams.

The Havre High varsity track and field and tennis teams are already one meet down as both teams suffered cancellations this past weekend in Cut Bank. The HHS junior varsity softball team was also set to play in Cut Bank on Saturday, but those games too were called off due to weather.

In fact, the HHS track teams, and a good portion of the Blue Pony tennis were never going to make it to Cut Bank on Saturday as last Monday's winter storm forced Havre High students to leave school early due to a power outage. The outage continued late into the afternoon, meaning spring sports teams couldn't even return to hold indoor practices.

That missed day turned out to still count against the Montana High School Association's rule that a student-athlete must have 10 practices in before he or she is eligible to participate in a regular season event. And with no practice on Monday, that left a large chunk of HHS athletes short of that number by this past Saturday.

Monday's epic storm also left Havre covered in a heavy weight snow. As of Friday, much of the Sixth Avenue Memorial Field, as well as the Havre Middle School track was still blanketed in the spring wet stuff, prolonging team's inability to practice.

However, it didn't turn out to matter anyway as more snow dumped onto the region on Friday and Friday night. The last cancellation came Friday morning, as Cut Bank called off its annual tennis invitational. The Blue Pony tennis teams did get in intrasquad matches on Saturday, but after a surprising season in which the Pony netters played every single week of the regular season in 2011, they, like the track and JV softball teams are already short one meet now.

And if the National Weather Forecast's predictions for this coming week hold true, HHS teams may fall even farther behind. The HHS softball team is set to open its season Friday and Saturday in Great Falls, while the track teams are headed to the Lewistown Invitational, and the tennis teams to the Conrad Invite. However, in all of North central Montana, the weekend forecast looks gloomy at best, with temperatures in the low 40's for Saturday predicted, as well as high percentages of rain, snow and wind also in the mix.

Still, all three Blue Pony teams will return to practice this week in hopes of beginning their seasons on the road this coming weekend. HHS tennis hosts the Havre Invite on April 7 in Havre.