M-ettes, Mavs, and Lady Mavs Head To Divisionals This Week

Three Phillips County basketball teams will be competing in their respective divisional tournament this week.

The North Country Mavericks and Lady Mavericks will head east to Glasgow for the 2024 Eastern C Divisional Tournament. The boys tournament is set to start at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, February 28, while the girls tournament starts on Thursday, February 29, at noon.

The Malta M-ettes will head west to Conrad for the 2024 Northern B Girls' Tournament that is set to start at 1:30 p.m.

Only two teams will head to state from the Northern B and Eastern C divisional tournaments. Each tournament has a potential spot for a challenge game that would come in the event that the loser of the championship game has not faced the consolation game's winner.

M-ettes

The Malta M-ettes (13-7) will start their divisional tournament against the Shelby Coyotes in the opening round on Thursday, February 7:30 p.m.

The Coyotes enter the Northern B as the fourth seed out of the 1B District Tournament after losing 44-40 to the Conrad Cowgirls in the consolation final. Shelby lost in the semifinals to the Fairfield Eagles, who eventually went to the finals and emerged as the 1B champions after upsetting the Chinook Sugarbeeters and handing them their first loss of the season.

If Malta can pick up a win over Shelby, it will likely be Chinook that they meet up with in the finals. Though Malta has not seen Shelby, they have seen Chinook and the M-ettes were handed a 65-32 loss on Saturday, December 9. Chinook was led by Hallie Neibauer, who scored 26 points. Alexus Seymour had 17 points.

In Chinook's win over CJI at the 1B Tournament, Neibauer had 26 points and Seymour had 12.

Lady Mavericks

The Lady Mavericks (20-0) enter the Eastern C Divisional Tournament as the first seed from 3C District and are set to face the Savage Lady Warriors who are 11-11 this season.

The Lady Warriors took out Froid-Lake and Westby-Grenora in the 2C Tournament a couple of weekends ago. The Warriors fell 45-41 to Richey-Lambert in the 2C Consolation finals. Two Warriors were in double digits scoring in that third place match including Cambry Conradsen and Karley McPherson, who had 12 points each. Brooke Reuter led Savage with 16 points in their win over Westby-Grenora. Conradsen had 19 in the team's win over Froid-Lake.

Savage's first loss of the 2C tournament came in the semifinals as they fell 44-35 to the Bainville Bulldogs. Bainville went on to lose the 2C Championship on Friday, February 17, to the Plentywood Wildcats.

North Country won the 2023 Eastern C Title after defeating the Plentywood Wildcats 46-44. They fell to Plentywood in the 2022 championship game. The Mavericks defeated Plentywood 63-54 in the 2021 Eastern C Championship.

Mavericks

The North Country Maverick boys basketball team (9-13) is entering the Eastern C Divisional Tournament as the 3C District's fourth seed. On Wednesday at 3 p.m., the Mavs will take on the Plentywood Wildcats (17-1), who won the District 2C title with a very decisive 63-29 victory over Culbertson.

Carson Solberg led the charge for Plentywood in the 2C Championship with 18 points. Chance Klein had 12 and Landon Flickinger had nine points.

On the same side of the bracket are Circle and Culbertson. Circle earned the third seed from the 3C District Tournament by defeating North Country 51-38 in the consolation finals.