Mustangs Take Down Rocky Boy, Roundup

The Malta Mustangs basketball team is now 11-5, after picking up a pair of wins on the road last week.

The Mustangs defeated the Rocky Boy Northern Stars 73-53 on Thursday, February 2, in Rocky Boy. Malta then traveled to Roundup and defeated the Panthers 75-30 on Saturday, February 4.

Malta will head to Poplar this Friday to take on the Poplar Indians. The Boys JV game is at 4:30 p.m. Varsity will follow at 6 p.m.

They will then have their last regular season home game against the Shelby Coyotes on Saturday, February 11. Boys JV will play at 1 p.m. Boys Varsity will play at 4 p.m.

In their win over Rocky Boy, sophomore Treyten Wilke had 23 points, four steals, four rebounds, and three assists.

Senior Jared Eggebrecht and sophomore Bohdi Brenden each scored 16 points. Brenden had five steals, and two assists. Eggebrecht had six rebounds.

"Jared has been working hard and he has all-around been playing really well for us," Coach Costin said.

He also mentioned that though he didn't score many points, senior Kaden Bishop has been playing really good team basketball.

"Just being a good teammate," Coach Costin said. "Doing a lot of talking and communication for us as well as playing hard."

Senior Eli Hanson was 4-of-5 from the floor and had eight points.

The Mustangs outscored Rocky Boy 22-4 in the first quarter. Both teams had 11 in the second quarter, Rocky Boy had 30 to Malta's 20 in the third quarter, but Malta was able to rebuild their lead in the fourth, by outpacing the Stars 20-8.

"We put some pressure on them, full-court, and zoned them up," Coach Costin said. "It worked pretty well in the first half. The second half they pressured us back and we turned it over a little and let them get back in the game. We made good decisions down the stretch and managed to get the lead back up to 20."

Malta outrebounded the Stars 36-25. Malta scored 29 points off of their 24 forced turnovers. Malta did give up 26 turnovers and 26 points off of those giveaways.

Malta took better care of the ball in their win over Roundup, only giving the ball away 14 times. Defensively, the Mustangs forced 25 turnovers and scored 22 points in transition.

Malta used their pressure defense and eventually dropped back into a 1-2-2 zone.

"The kids really like it," Coach Costin said. "They are excited about it. For halftime we were talking about making changes or sticking with (the 1-2-2 zone) and they all wanted to stick with it."

Stockton Oxarart led the charge for the Mustangs with 18 points, four steals and three rebounds.

Hanson had 14 points, eight rebounds, and two assists. He made 6-of-7 shot attempts.

"Eli had a nice night," Coach Costin said. He has had two pretty decent games in a row now."

Wilke had 13 points. Brenden had eight points, four rebounds, four assists.

Malta was 24-of-39 (62%) from inside the perimeter, and 6-of-19 (32%) from three point range. The Mustangs outscored Roundup 46-16 in the paint.

"We jumped on those guys a little early and never really let them make a run," Coach Costin said. "It was nice. We got a lot of kids in the game and tried the 1-2-2 zone for extended minutes."