Girls rally in fourth quarter, boys’ Ebe Grabow reaches 1,000 points
By Jen Clancey STAFF WRITER
On Friday, Jan. 9, the Lone Peak High School boys basketball team hit not one, not two, but three milestones in their home game against Twin Bridges High School. First, senior Ebe Grabow became the third player in program history to score 1,000 points over the course of his career, then junior Ryan Malinowski sank seven three-pointers, matching the program record. Finally, the Big Horns scored 12 three-pointers, setting a new program high.
The game closed with a 71-61 win for the Big Horns, but on the way to the buzzer, fans waited anxiously with “1,000” posters to celebrate Grabow’s accomplishment. That moment didn’t happen until the fourth quarter, and the cheers came as a surprise for Grabow, who, with his teammates, had zoned in on a tough matchup against Twin Bridges and had no time to focus on tallying.
“ I didn’t really know how close I was. I was unsure and then I just, I scored and then Al [Malinowski] told me … I had no idea,” Grabow told EBS after the game. He said that he’s loved being a part of the basketball team and guidance from older players when he was starting out was helpful for staying focused too.
“Being a freshman, I had some seniors that were good, great role models for me, and then I just carried on,” Grabow said. The senior had 11 points to go before reaching 1,000 at the beginning of the game against the Twin Bridges Falcons. He began erasing that distance in the first quarter with his first-ever dunk in a game.
Head coach Al Malinowski made sure that he kept the score countdown to himself so the players focused on beating Twin Bridges, but there were hints.
“ I try not to tell ‘em when something like that’s coming up because I don’t want them to feel the pressure,” Malinowski said, smiling. “I think he could probably sense it from me a little bit ’cause at the end I was like, get Ebe the ball. Get him a shot.”
Malinowski noted that Grabow has played a big part in the team’s success over the years, including a run in the state tournament when he was a freshman.
“He was a big part of helping make that happen and just to really see him grow as a person and as a teammate over the last four years has been exciting,” Malinowski said.
The boys and girls teams entered Friday’s game with less rest than usual, as away buses from Townsend rolled into the Lone Peak High School parking lot at around midnight the night before. Malinowski was pleased with the team’s turnaround in such a short span of time.
“ I thought we rebounded much better than we did [Thursday night]. And that benefited us in a lot of ways where we were getting second, third chance opportunities that we weren’t getting [Thursday] night,” Malinowski said. Each player on the court was ready to score on Friday night, too, making things difficult for the Falcons’ man-to-man defense.
Junior Ryan Malinowski continually collected rebounds, moved the ball quickly to open players and scored the most of his team on Friday with 33 points, followed by Grabow’s 12, junior Miles Romney and sophomore Steen Mitchell’s nine, junior Sid Morris’ six and freshman Jens Biggerstaff’s two.
Malinowski explained that the Falcons are a “really good team” and they do not quit—a scoreboard of 71-61 shows the relentless back-and-forth each quarter.
The team stood together with a homemade poster celebrating Grabow’s 1,000th point after the game and the senior’s overall scoring sits at 1,001.
Girls bring heat in the final quarter, lose to Falcons
In a 43-31 loss against the Falcons, the girls basketball team continued pressure, with Lone Peak players racking up 17 points with five minutes left in the fourth quarter. In those five minutes, four players scored: senior Harper Morris, senior Maddie Wilcynski, eighth grader Kaydence Rothmeyer and junior Catherine Coltea with a three-pointer.
Though the Falcons had already collected enough points to hold off the Big Horns, the crowd cheered as the Big Horns continued to find momentum. Notably, with 36 seconds to go, Coltea sank a three-pointer to move the score to 29, followed by Wilcynski intercepting a pass and putting it away.
The basketball programs have a week to rest and practice before their next game, which will be at home against Three Forks High School on Friday, Jan. 16. This will be the first time that the Big Horns have faced the Wolves this season.
