Malta falls to Harlem in 2B Chipper

The Malta Mustangs basketball team is headed back to Glasgow for the 2022 Northern B Divisional Tournament on Thursday, February 24.

Malta punched its ticket to the Northern B thanks to their 7-1 record against District 2B foes in the regular season, making last week a lower-stakes outing for the Conference Champion Mustangs.

The team's aspiration to make the 2022 Class B State Tournament comes with a lot more suspense, as they hope to be one of three teams to head to Bozeman on Thursday, March 10.

Malta lost the District 2B Championship game to the Harlem Wildcats on Saturday, February 19, in Glasgow. The final score was 71-56. To reach the title game, Malta defeated Poplar 72-52.

"We did battle," Malta Head Coach David Costin told the PCN after the championship. "We got put back on our heels right away and played very tentatively. Especially offensively. We didn't attack the rim. That is an experienced, senior-led team that just played very well tonight."

Coach Costin was proud of how his young team performed.

"It was another good experience for them and maybe we will be a little more ready here this weekend," Coach Costin said.

The Mustangs will face the Fairfield Eagles, who took third place at the 1B District tournament last week. The Eagles defeated Conrad 75-31 on Saturday, February 19, in the third-place game. Fairfield also defeated Choteau 67-24 in their first consolation game. Fairfield lost their tournament opener 65-61 to Rocky Boy.

The leading scorers in Fairfield's win over Conrad were Owen Cartwright-Gines and Cooper Christensen who both had 16 points. Bryden Batson had nine points and Kaelob Flores had eight points.

Batson led Fairfield against Choteau with 16 points. Daniel Faith had 13 points.

"It would've been nice to get that (championship win against Harlem) because our side of the Northern B bracket is a tough one," Coach Costin said.

If Malta can get past Fairfield in the opening round of the tournament, they will likely see Shelby in the semifinals. Shelby was the 1B District Tournament Champion last week after defeating the Rocky Boy Stars 61-35 in the championship game.

Malta has lost both of their meetings with Shelby so far this year; the score was 70-65 in their first meeting in Malta in January and 52-41 in Malta's regular-season finale earlier this month.

If Glasgow can shock the Northern B and defeat Shelby in the opening round, the road to the championship could still be tough for Malta, who defeated the Scotties 44-43, thanks to a heroic trey from freshman Bodhi Brenden, a few weeks ago.

In Malta's 2B championship loss to Harlem, Malta was led by senior Connor Tuss who had 16 points, 10 rebounds, and two steals. Freshman Stockton Oxarart scored 12 points from four treys, which fell in the second half. Senior Rex Williamson had nine points.

Harlem was led by guard RJ Ramone and post Caleb Cole who scored 23 points each.

Harlem jumped out to a 17-8 lead at the end of the first quarter, which grew to a 38-18 lead heading into halftime.

Harlem's lead was at its peak in the third quarter, when the Wildcats were up 49-21 (28 points) halfway through the third quarter. The score at the end of three quarters was 52-28. The Mustangs hit a few three-pointers (two by Oxarart, one by Williamson) to open the fourth quarter. Malta outscored Harlem 28-19 in the fourth quarter, which included an 11-0 run to start the period.

In Malta's semi-final win over Poplar, the team was led by Rex Williamson who had 32 points, while going 13-of-18 from the field.

Tuss had 18 points and 13 rebounds. Freshmen Bohdi Brenden had 11 points and five rebounds.

Malta had a 29-26 lead going into halftime. The game saw eight lead changes and three ties before Malta's offense began to click in the third quarter. Malta outscored Poplar 19-9 in the third and 24-17 in the fourth quarter. Malta's largest lead was by 22 points.

Malta scored 16 points off of turnovers, while Poplar had zero. Poplar turned the ball over 13 times, while Malta only had nine turnovers.

The Mustangs shot 29-of-59 (49%)from the field, Poplar was 20-of-56 (35%). Malta was 3-of-17 (17%) from three-point range, while Poplar was 8-of-24 (33%).

"Defensively, we did a pretty good job," Coach Costin said. "I don't know if we had some jitters because we struggled to score in the first half, especially the first quarter. But then we settled in in the second half."

Coach Costin felt that his team took shots too early in the first half, but felt that they moved the ball better in the second half.

"We did make a few more passes and it helped us get some better looks," Coach Costin said.