The Havre girls’ basketball team has its first winning streak of the 2023-24 season with victories over East Helena and Lockwood. New Media Broadcasters spoke with head coach Dustin Kraske and he said his team’s slow starts turned into conformability later in the games.
“I think maybe we were a little nervous to start with,” Kraske said. “We certainly weren’t ready to go and in the second half, I thought our kids played (and) made some great adjustments (, playing with quite a bit more enthusiasm).”
“The greatest key to our game has always been for us playing good defense, making (the opponent) earn it and defensively rebound, so I thought we did that very well,” Kraske continued. “It was really fun to watch (my players) play. They did a nice job.”
The Lady Blue Ponies will now co-host the inaugural “East-West Showdown” with two days of competition against teams out of the western part of Montana. Havre will play Whitefish on Friday, followed by a matchup with Missoula Loyola on Saturday. Coach Kraske walks the listeners through the process of preparing for these teams and discusses his enthusiasm for playing games at home.
“Two home games for our kids and our fan base so we don’t have to travel is very much appreciated,” Kraske said. “It’s exciting to play Whitefish and Missoula Loyola, two teams that we don’t normally play.”
“It’s more about our team and our approach to how we play than it will be about the other teams,” Kraske said. “We’ll just defend that and have a few little wrinkles that we’ll do, but it’s nothing really detailed.”
The Havre vs Whitefish girls’ game will tip at 2pm on Friday. The Saturday Havre-Loyola game is scheduled for 3pm and you can listen to Noah Friedman on the call for KOJM-610AM.
For a full list of teams and times of the inaugural “East-West Showdown”, click on the “Scoreboard!” tab of HiLineToday.com.
