Coach Malinowski shares end-of-season takeaways: ‘I’m really proud of the effort’
By Jack Reaney SENIOR EDITOR
The district tournament didn’t go as planned for Lone Peak High School, as the Big Horns enjoyed a first-round bye before losing back-to-back games.
An illness affected multiple players on the young team, including junior starters Miles Romney and Sid Morris. The situation taxed the depth of a program with only 12 players, counting two eighth graders. After a 22-point loss to Broadwater High School on Wednesday, Feb. 25, Lone Peak faced elimination against Jefferson High School on Saturday, Feb. 28.
The Big Horns held a 14-point halftime lead, but ran out of gas and fell by a 16-point margin.
“Everything seemed to kind of catch up to us in that second half,” Malinowski said in a phone call with EBS. “… Probably played our best [first] half of basketball all season. We were moving the ball, people were scoring, we were active.”
He added, “Not making excuses, but the reality of it is, we had a pretty thin bench to begin with… Sometimes it catches up to you. We knew we weren’t at full strength, but we went out and gave it what we could.”
With a short bench and some contributors at less than 100% health, Jefferson’s physicality wore the Big Horns down. Shots stopped falling, junior Sid Morris fouled out and a strong season ended in disappointment.
“It was tough, but at the same time, I’m really proud of the effort that we put in,” Malinowski said. “We’re the smallest school in the 5B district, but I think every game we showed we could compete with the teams we were playing.”
Malinowski pointed out that this year’s team will only lose one senior. It’s a young program, with a lot of potential and room to grow.
That one senior, however, is Ebe Grabow, who finished his LPHS career with 1,210 points, good for second-most in school history. Grabow racked up 18 career 20-point games.
Returning players include three 100-point scorers this season: juniors Ryan Malinowski, Miles Romney and Sid Morris.
Counting Grabow, 2025-26 was the first season since 2022-23 in which the program had at least four players with 100 points. And this team did it while playing just 20 games—nine fewer than the 2023 state tournament team.
Sharpshooting point guard Ryan Malinowski now owns the program’s single-game, single-season, and career 3-point records. Romney led the team in rebounds. Morris “really excelled” and scored more points from the interior this year, coach Malinowski said.
Young guys showed growth, too: sophomores Nick Hoadley, Steen Mitchell and Keenan Masonic will see their roles expand next season. Coach Malinowski expects a lot more opportunities for current freshman Jens Biggerstaff.
“We’ve got three juniors that are coming back next year with a lot of experience,” Malinowski said, emphasizing the importance of offseason work. “… We just need everybody to get a little better.”
The district tournament offered a lesson about handling adversity, and Malinowski is confident his team will learn from it and benefit from experiencing playoff basketball, regardless of the outcome.
“This team brought us a lot of great moments through the course of the season. We weren’t necessarily playing our best at the end, but I think there’s still a lot to celebrate,” Malinowski said.
The Lone Peak girls team wrapped up their challenging season with a pair of losses in the tournament. They fell 66-36 against Jefferson, and 37-22 against Manhattan High School.
