M-ettes cruise past Rocky Boy, Roundup

The Malta M-ettes are now 14-0 after defeating the Rocky Boy Northern Star girls 68-27 last Friday night in Malta. The team then traveled to Roundup last Saturday to face the Lady Panthers and won 44-23.

The team will take on Glasgow, who is sitting in second place in District 2B basketball with a 10-4 overall record, and a 4-1 record in the district. Malta won 56-34 the last time these teams met. The game is set to start tomorrow at Malta High School at 6 p.m.

The M-ettes will then travel to Shelby on Saturday to try to sweep the Coyotes, who they defeated 62-15 in January. The game is set for 4 p.m.

In their win against Rocky Boy, Malta was led by Sophia Stiles who had 29 points, nine steals, six rebounds and six assists. She was 11-17 from the field, which included six three pointers.

Jada Nicholson had ten points, three rebounds, two steals and one block. Mary Kalal had eight points. Hailey Nicholson had six points, six rebounds, five assists and three blocks. Marley Manoukian and Adrianna Bibeau both had four points. Shay Garfield had three points. Raleigh Hunter and Mystic Striker had two points each.

"I think we came out really slow," Hailey said. "I think it was obvious. Then at half-time, we knew in our heads that we had to get going, so we upped our intensity and things just got going."

Coach Hammond also noticed that the tempo of the game wasn't typical.

"It's hard to play well and play intense every night," he said. "Tonight we just had a little bit of trouble getting going,"

He didn't want to take away from the effort of his opponent.

"Rocky Boy did a good job," he said. "They were making shots, they were cutting, they were working hard on offense and making us look a little silly on defense at times."

The game did start slow for the M-ettes, with the score being, 31-18 at halftime. The team outscored Rocky Boy by 19 points in the third quarter to put the game out of reach.

Malta scored 32 points off of 25 forced turnovers. The team recorded 20 steals, 19 second chance points and 15 points off of the bench.

The M-ettes were led by H. Nicholson in their win against Roundup. She had 19 points, four rebounds, two blocks and one steal.

Stiles had 11 points, six rebounds and five steals. J. Nicholson and Kalal had four points each. Manoukian had three points. Garfield had two points and Eva Harms had one point.

The C-squad also won in their game against Roundup 34-7, but the JV squad lost 22-19.

With tournaments starting in a couple of weeks, Malta is looking good and they also feel ready.

"I think we're feeling pretty good," Hailey said. "We still have to work hard, but we're ready to go."

There have been a few players on the team that have caught the eye of Hailey, who has been an M-ette starter for most of her career.

"Adrianna's doing well," she said. "She works hard on defense and she's strong with the ball."

She also mentioned another fellow senior.

"I think Mary is really doing awesome," Nicholson said. "She's really amazing me. She's been working really hard, which is good to see. She's so much more confident with the ball and she's eager to learn more about the game."