Malden Green Wave's Homecoming breaks a 17-game losing streak

MALDEN, Mo. - Homecoming games tend to be filled with school spirit and pride.

This was especially true for the Malden boys basketball team who picked up their first win of the season on their homecoming court.

The Green Wave beat the Rebels from Southland with a final score of 74-55.

Despite having a slow start to their season, Malden’s head coach Mike Kilgore said he never lost faith in his team eventually adding a game to their win column. After dropping 17 straight games, this win felt pretty special for them.

“I’m just excited for the kids,” Kilgore said. “They work hard every day, come to practice every day and want to get better. Our team isn’t down, we are just young and inexperienced.”

After going 21-6 last season and making it all the way to the District Championship game, Malden lost many of their key players. Now, they have a varsity lineup filled with freshmen, sophomores and only one senior.

Zackery (Zack) Perkins, the team’s lone senior, said it was nice to finally see his team complete a full game.

“It’s been a rough season for us,” Perkins said. ‘But that finally proved to us that we actually can compete through four quarters and pull out a win. It feels pretty good.”

According to Perkins, a lot of the games they dropped this season are games they should have won. Ultimately, they would find themselves falling apart in the second half and fumbling the victory.

He, along with Kilgore, were proud to see a win. However, they are more excited to see how the rest of this season unfolds with this new-found hope.

“Now they have something to look forward to,” Kilgore said. “They actually know what it’s like to compete for four quarters. That is all we talked about all week, give me a full game. Now they know what that feels like and the results that come out of doing that.”

The Green Wave took the lead from the tip, but not by much. Southland stayed in contact through the majority of the game. Trailing by only two points, the score was 17-15 after one quarter.

Junior Dyentez Dobbins led the way for the Green Wave in the first half. He started the game with seven points in the first quarter and six points in the second quarter for a total of 13 first-half points.

However, the three-point shooting from Southland helped bail them out of a huge deficit in the first half. They had six three-pointers in the first half compared to Malden which only scored two three-point field goals. Five of Southland’s three-pointers came from senior shooting guard Jeremiah McMinn. He finished the first half with 15 points, all scored from beyond the arc.

Then to close out the half, Junior Jamyius Benford got a steal which led to a breakaway layup, followed by another forced turnover which led to an open three-pointer and a five-point turnaround. They went into the locker rooms with a 39-30 lead and all of the momentum.

Coming out of halftime, Malden’s defensive pressure limited the Rebels to only 10 points in the third quarter. The spread grew to 18 points with Malden leading 58-40.

The Rebels fought back in the fourth but were still outscored 16-15, putting this game away.

Dobbins was the leading scorer. Following his first-half performance, he would finish with 17 points. Freshman forward Landon DeProw trailed right behind Dobbins, scoring 16 points. With 13 points, Zion Bell was the final player to reach double-digits for the Green Wave in their homecoming victory.

Perkins, who finished with six points on two three-pointers, was thankful for the student section and the fans who came to support them on homecoming.

“During the season, we were losing a lot of fans because the season is not going how we want,” Perkins said. “This was amazing, having everyone here was a big motivator.”

On the other side, McMinn and junior point guard Knoah Beal both finished with 16 points to lead the Rebels in scoring.

After this defeat, Southland falls to 12-10 heading into their Tri-County Conference Tournament. This is slated to start on Monday, Feb. 10 at Southland High School. Southland, ranked sixth, will face off against the No. 3 ranked Cooter at 8 p.m.

Malden, 1-17, will move on to close out the rest of their regular season. They have a three-game road trip starting at Scott City on Tuesday, Feb. 11.

“We are just going to take it one game at a time,” Kilgore said. “This was big for us, we finally got one, but now have to take that next step and take care of business. If they play like they did tonight, everything will take care of itself.”