Blue Pony football shut down by Lewistown for second year in a row

Vengeance was on the Blue Ponies' mind when they went on the road to play Lewistown Friday night. Last fall, Havre High football lost 21-0 to Lewistown so they were looking for a more competitive outcome this fall. However, Lewistown continued to shut down the Pony offense as Havre lost 33-0.

“It didn’t feel very good for the Ponies,” HHS head coach Ryan Gatch said. “We just weren’t able to make enough plays, and so it’s one of those things where we can keep developing as a team. We got to keep learning and growing and keep working on competing on every rep.”

Both teams entered the contest 1-0 and looking for an early lead in the Eastern A conference. Havre had defeated Sidney 12-7 to open the season and Lewistown opened the season with a 41-6 win over Glendive. With the loss, the Ponies are now 1-1 early in the year while Lewistown is 2-0.

Early on, it looked like Havre would be able to move the ball against the Golden Eagles. On their opening drive of the game, the Ponies converted a fourth and short on their own side of the field with a carry from Orion Thivierge.

The Ponies eventually got to the Lewistown 30-yard line but that is where the wheels came off. On back-to-back plays, the Ponies were called for holding penalties that pushed them all the way back to their side of the field. Havre could not get back the yards and had to punt.

“We had a lot of yardage on penalties and that’s something that we’ll be working very diligently on this week on cleaning up,” Gatch said about the foul calls.

On defense, penalties continued to trouble the Ponies. Early in the drive, a roughing the passer penalty gave Lewistown a first down. Late in the drive, a defensive pass interference on fourth down gave Lewistown several yards they needed to kick a field goal for the 3-0 lead with 25.8 seconds left in the first quarter.

A few drives later, Lewistown took advantage of good field position to extend their lead. With 5:03 left in the half, Jett Boyce ran it out from 11 yards out for the score. Even when Havre got the ball back, the Lewistown defense pressured HHS quarterback Trenton Maloughney into an interception. Pressure on Maloughney was a common theme throughout the night as the Eagles tackled him for a loss five times.

“They run a nice style of defense,” Gatch said about the Lewistown pass rush. “Even in our max protections, they were still able to get some heat on us. They only brought about five guys when they got the pressure on so we just got a lot of refining to do. We got to work on our pass protections.”

A few plays later, Boyce ran 11 yards for a touchdown to extend Lewistown’s lead to 17-0 with 1:10 left in the half. Looking to get back in the game, the Ponies gambled with an onside kick to open the second half but Lewistown recovered the ball. The Eagles capitalized on it with a 32-yard field goal to make it 20-0 with 8:07 left in the third quarter.

Later in the quarter after Lewistown scored again to make their lead 27-0, the Ponies finally got some production on offense. Thivierge got the drive going for the Ponies with a 42-yard run to get down to the Lewistown 20-yard line. However, Maloughney gave the ball back to the Eagles with a red zone interception.

The Ponies went on to end the game with two more punts. After a disappointing offensive performance, Gatch will need to find a way to get more production before their next game against Hardin this Friday night.

“We got a lot of things that we learned, what we got to clean up for this upcoming weekend,” Gatch said. “We got a lot of work to do and the good news is that we got a really fun group of players that are real coachable and really eager to learn.”

HHS football will look to get back in the win column when they host Hardin at Blue Pony Stadium this Friday night at 6 p.m.

Lewistown 33, Havre 0

Havre 0 0 0 0 - 0

Lewistown 3 14 10 6 - 33

LEW - Kieran Netburn 30-yard field goal

LEW - Jett Boyce 11 run (Netburn kick)

LEW - Boyce 11 run (Netburn kick)

LEW - Netburn 32-yard field goal

LEW - Kyler Fleming 6 pass from Chase Fields (Netburn kick)

LEW - Boyce 59 pass from Fields (Run failed)

Individual Stats

PASSING - Trenton Maloughney 4-8-26-0-2.

RUSHING - Orion Thivierge 7-50; Terry Crawford 6-16; Kale VanCampen 1-1.

RECEIVING - Kale VanCampen 2-16; Hunter Sawdey 1-7; Jason Wold 1-3.