Rocky Boy takes Northern B, Glasgow first team out

Just last year, Rocky Boy was a Class C school. But the Northern Stars left no indication of that, tearing through the Northern B Divisional to take the championship and a top seed in this weekend's state tournament in Billings.

Rocky Boy cruised through the tournament, only finding trouble in the championship final against Shelby, a rematch of the District 1B final that they won 40-39.

The championship game was close again, but the Stars pulled away in the fourth quarter to win 58-48. The Stars beat Poplar 87-43 in the opener, playing their backups for most of the second half, and crushed Malta 98-76 in the semifinals. Jerod Parker led the Stars in scoring in each of the last two games, netting 21 points in the thumping of Malta and 16 points in the rematch against Shelby.

Rocky Boy had at least three scorers in double figures in each of its three games at the tournament and against Malta four players scored at least 16 points.

Glasgow, on the other hand, wasn't quite as impressive.

The Scotties lost both of their games during the weekend, seemingly giving up in the opener against Shelby before failing to get out of their funk against Cut Bank the next day.

Against Shelby the Scotties were holding their own for most of the first half. In the first quarter, Glasgow led nearly the entire time but saw its lead disappear late when the Coyotes hit three 3-pointers to close the quarter, turning a 17-12 deficit into a 21-17 lead entering the second.

The three point barrage seemed to take the wind out of the Scotties' sails, but the team only trailed 36-28 at halftime, despite a boatload of turnovers in the first 16 minutes.

Yet despite only the eight-point hole, the Scotties seemed deflated coming out of halftime and showed their lack of enthusiasm on the court. Glasgow's first basket didn't come until only 35 seconds remained in the third quarter when Jon Page got a putback off of a missed shot.

The fourth quarter didn't go any better for the Scotties. They again only scored one field goal in the quarter and failed to score for the final three minutes of the ball game, losing 58-35 in front of their hometown crowd.

Drew Croy led the scoring with 14 points, and Jon Page had nine points, including all seven of the Scotties' second half points. Both Dylan Hughes and Patrick Billingsley had six points for Glasgow.

The Scotties were better on the offensive end against Cut Bank on Friday but still failed to get on the winning end. Glasgow led by one after the first quarter but a terrible second quarter doomed the Scotties. Cut Bank outscored Glasgow 14-8 in the second, taking a seven point lead into halftime that they wouldn't relinquish.
Croy had another big game in his last outing with the Scotties, scoring 19 points to lead the way for Glasgow. Page also had a big night with 18 points in his final game. Fellow seniors Patrick Billingsley and Dylan Hughes had six points and five points, respectively. Tristan Schmitt didn't score in a little more than a minute of play.

Though the tournament was bad for Glasgow, it was bad for District 2B as a whole. Of the four teams that came from the conference only Wolf Point will be headed to State, with the Wolves beating Cut Bank 57-38 in the consolation final to take the third spot out of the North.

Malta, who lost by one point to the Wolves in the District 2B final, thumped Fairfield in the opener before losing by 22 points to Rocky Boy.

The next game, against Cut Bank, the Mustangs missed two free throws at the end of regulation that sent the game to overtime. In the extra session, Cut Bank took advantage of their second chance and jumped in front of the Mustangs early, galvanizing the win with free throws late to knock Malta out of the tournament.

Like Glasgow, Poplar lost its only two games of the tournament, dropping games to Rocky Boy and Fairfield.