Havre basketball has logged its road miles over the course of the last two weeks. The Blue Ponies will finally return home to host conference rival Fergus.
Starting with girls’ coach Tommy Brown, he said Fergus likes to live underneath the hoop and his team will have to be ready to guard that kind of offense.
“They’re quite a big team. They rebound the ball well. They do a lot of post play,” Brown said. “We have to be gritty on the low block and make sure that we’re doing a good job of keeping it out of the post and getting rebounds.”
“They like to offensive rebound,” Brown continued. “I think that’s the ticket to containing Fergus.”
For the boys’, it’s all about the rivalry with the Golden Eagles which carries over from the football gridiron to the hardwood. Coach Walynn Burgess said his team will have to be ready to go against a respectable program, no matter how the Lewistown season has gone so far.
“Anytime you play the rival, it’s always going to be a battle,” Burgess said. “We know we’re going to be in for a challenge with them.”
“It doesn’t matter on the record. It doesn’t matter if they graduated a few kids,” Burgess continued. “They’re going to play hard. (Fergus head) coach (Scott) Sparks is always going to have them in the right spot.”
“We know we’re going to have to come out and execute (t0) the best of our abilities, just really being locked in on that defensive end, ” Burgess said. “We always get excited when we get back home, playing in the Corral and having the home crowd with it and just bringing a different energy to it.”
Havre hosts Fergus for a doubleheader on Thursday night. Coverage starts around 6pm for the girls’ (9-1, 2-0) and then the boys’ (5-5, 1-1) are on court next around 7:30pm. with Kyle Leeds on the call for KOJM-610AM, 98.3FM, and HiLineToday.com. For the full conversation with coach Brown and Coach Burgess, visit HiLineToday.com in the sports podcasts tab.
