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News you can use
Havre's Thomas Brown (21) shoots as Central's Sam Gray (33) defends in the second quarter of the quarterfinal game during the Eastern A Divisional tournament at Rimrock Auto Arena at MetraPark Thursday. The Blue Ponies will look to stay alive when they play in a loser-out game this afternoon.
The Havre High boys basketball team knew what it was up against in the opening round of the 2019 Eastern A Divisional Tournament. After all, the Billings Central Rams are just one of the top teams in the state, but the Blue Ponies saw the Rams on the opening night of the season back in December.
Still, Havre went into Thursday afternoon's Eastern A first-round game against the Rams ready to give them their best shot, and that's exactly what the Blue Ponies did in a 55-41 loss inside Rimrock Auto Arena at the Metra.
As expected, Billings Central came out red-hot and put together a 20-7 run in the first quarter, behind key buckets from Sam Gray. Havre got a strong lift from Kellen Detrick in the second stanza, but the Ponies still trailed 34-19 at intermission.
In the second half, the Ponies continued to play well, and they outscored the Rams 22-21 in the final 16 minutes. But trailing 43-29 after three quarters, Havre couldn't mount enough of a comeback in the final stanza.
Detrick paced the Ponies with 17 points, while Tommy Brown added seven. Gray scored 18 for Central, which will face Miles City in the semifinals Friday night. The other semifinal will feature Livingston taking on Hardin.
Meanwhile, all of Havre's goals are still there for the taking. The Blue Ponies will play Sidney in a loser-out game today, and if they win, will play either Hardin or Livingston for a chance to go to state Saturday morning.
Havre's game with Sidney tips today at 1:30 p.m. in the Metra. The Eastern A runs through Saturday night with the top four teams moving on to the Class A state tournament March 7-9 in Great Falls.
Billings Central 55, Havre 41
Havre 7 12 10 12 - 41
Central 20 14 14 7 - 55
BC - Sam Gray 18, Cade Herriford 10, Crishon Dixon 7, Niki Krause 6, Seth Sasich 5, Charlie Parkan 3, Joe Byorth 3, Gabriel Penha Dos Santos 3.
Havre - Kellen Detrick 17, Tommy Brown 7, Clint Owens 4, Jake Huston 4, Mason Rismon 3, Tyrel Kjersem 3, Tysen Sangria 2, Austin Delarosa 1.
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