The Havre boys basketball team has reached the latest goal of making it to the MHSA State Class ‘A’ Basketball Tournament. The road begins on Thursday when the team will travel down to the Butte Civic Center to play against Hamilton (19-2), the No. 1 seed out of the Western ‘A’. Coach WaLynn Burgess told New Media Broadcasters that the opponent is a familiar one because of seeing them in summer tournaments and that he thinks his team has a great chance to get to a semifinal in the first go-round.
“They score really well,” Burgess said. “They’ve got nobody under six points a game. They’re just really tough.”
“In the summertime, we go see them and play them a couple times and see where we’re at,” Burgess continued. “It gives us confidence that they might be (19-2), but man, we can go out and beat them, too.”
“Do our prep work, get ready to go, and get there on Thursday at 5 and see where the ball takes us,” Burgess said.
To try and bring things back down to earth, Coach Burgess keeps a saying from his former college coach, Shawn Huse, in his back pocket and has emphasized that to his squad leading up to the moment of taking the floor for the state tournament.
“Be in the moment where you’re at. Nothing is bigger than that moment,” Burgess said. “Famous coach Huse saying that I’ve had for 15 years, ‘Don’t let your highs be too high and don’t let your lows be too low; try and keep it in the middle.’ We’ve talked about being where your feet are and enjoying the moment in being there.”
“It’s been a year built for us to get back down into the (Butte) Civic Center,” Burgess continued. “Having that bad taste last year with a challenge game (loss to Columbia Falls) in the same place where state is at this year, we kind of knew that it’s god’s plan for that to get us back in there.”
“Somehow we made it (and) put the work in to get there,” Burgess said. “Now we get our opportunity back at it again. All the hard work these kids have put in to have these chances to play in a state tournament.”
The Havre-Hamilton game will get going Thursday around 5pm. Catch all the action on KOJM-610AM and HiLineToday.com.
