Program celebrates first victory since November 2023
By Jack Reaney SENIOR EDITOR
The Lone Peak High School girls basketball season will live to see another day. The Big Horns beat the Whitehall High School Trojans, 49-45, in an elimination round of the district 5B tournament at Manhattan Christian School on Thursday.
The Big Horns had not won any of their games this season, including a first-round tournament loss to Jefferson High School, 69-29, on Wednesday evening. In the Big Horns’ second year competing against relatively larger schools in Montana Class B, head coach Jessica Bedway has been focused on teaching fundamentals and emphasizing the importance of offseason practice.
“It’s huge, the girls are overjoyed,” Bedway said, adding that the team’s losing streak extends roughly 15 months since November 2023. “Especially with Addy [Malinowski] having such an awesome game and fouling out at the end, they’re all screaming, ‘let’s do it for Addy’… So they were all very excited.”
Malinowski, a senior, said she was determined to leave everything on the court in potentially her final high school game. She drained three 3-pointers early and finished with 19 points, the most for Lone Peak. Junior Harper Morris added 14 points.
“It just feels so good, and I’m so glad in my last few games on this team that I was able to help us get to that,” Malinowski said. “… Just getting this when it really counted really meant a lot to us.”
Bedway said each game against Whitehall has been close at halftime this season, with the Trojans pulling away in the third quarter. Bedway said it was fun, but given her team’s recent history, she tempered her hopes in the final minutes as the Trojans threatened and the Big Horns struggled to chew up the clock. With 20 seconds left, the Big Horns led 48-45, but a free throw by sophomore Catherine Coltea added some security.
Bedway praised Coltea for filling in at point guard when junior Maddie Wilcynski got into foul trouble.
“For her to come up and handle the rest of the third quarter on her own, she did a great job… She really, really stepped up when we needed her to,” Bedway said.
Junior Poppy Towle had key rebounds. Sophomore Sophie Kendrick returned from an illness and made timely baskets.
“Everyone stepped up… Everyone just really played their best,” Bedway said.
The Big Horns will remain in win-or-go-home territory, with their next game Saturday at 11:15 a.m., against the loser of Ennis and Manhattan high schools.
Although Big Horns were excited and screaming as they ran into the locker room after shaking their opponents’ hands, they pretended they were crying to fool their coach, although they couldn’t keep the joke going long before celebrating.
“It was really funny,” Malinowski said, still giddy from long awaited victory. “I’m just very proud of everyone, and I hope they continue to take this momentum into their next season.”
Bedway’s message to her ecstatic team after the game was simple: “See what we can do when we pull together, and we all do our jobs and take our time and take deep breaths,” Bedway said, adding that in the past the team played “panic ball.”
“They’ve really come a long way, and I just hope they put in the work in the offseason so they can continue the improvement.”
