On February 14th, the Men’s Basketball team, ranked #3 in the division, took on Holy Family, ranked #4 in the division, in a fight for the Tri-Valley Conference Championship.

This was no easy match for the Mavericks. At the beginning of the game, the boys knew that they were going to be faced with a challenge. The last time the two teams met Mead got past Holy Family with a 50-45 win.

The past game was a close one with Holy Family almost completing the comeback over the course of the game. Jacob McGill, a junior at Mead, speaks on how they beat Holy Family both times saying, “Honestly it was just us playing to our standards, we practiced and prepared for this game like we do every other game. The first time it was any other game but the second game you could say it was for conference champs.”

What ended up winning the game for Mead was their phenomenal first quarter. Scoring 22 points and only allowing 11,  Mead set themselves up for the win early. Will Maher, a junior at Mead, says, “I believed we played well, it was a fun atmosphere to play in and they gave us the energy we needed to win.”

There seemed to be only two players that Holy Family had that could score, Kyle Helbig and Tanner Baird. Combined they scored a total of 59 points, making them responsible for over two-thirds of their total points.

Meanwhile, on Mead’s side, the points were more evenly distributed, with the entire team being able to put it in the bucket. The tops scorers for Mead were Jax Wilke with 20 points and Caleb Ayers with 19.

Mead’s 3-point game is what held them the lead. Sinking 12 during the game for 36 points.

Holy Family, on the other hand, only hit four, for 12 points at the three. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t many attempts though. The two teams shot close to the same amount with Mead sinking 52% to only 25% by the Tigers.  

After the first quarter, Mead held a commanding lead over the Tigers by 11 points. However, Holy Family shrunk Mead’s lead over the following quarters.

In the second, the Tigers came out strong but Mead held them back only allowing them to gain one point back of the 11 point lead. At the half, the score was 36-26.

Mead dominated in the free throws as well. The combination of not taking many fouls sinking shots from the line when they had to gave Mead their presence. They made 15 of 21 compared to the five of seven for Tigers.

The Mavericks outperformed the Tigers in shooting too. They shot with a 54% completion to the Tigers 49%.

Both teams turned up the heat in the third and fourth quarters, but not much else changed. Each team racked up over 20 points each quarter.

The only stat Holy Family had the edge in was rebounds. Mead had 10 offensive and 17 defensive to Holy Family’s 14 offensive and 14 defensive. However, there was only a one rebound difference between the two teams.

In the end, Holy Family only ended up gaining back three of the 11 point deficit they accrued in the first quarter, making the final score 79-71, locking Mead into a good playoff spot and giving them a bye in the first round.

The Mavericks ended up walking out of regular season with the 19 game win streak and an impressive record of 20-3. Mead is going into playoffs with a first round bye. Their first game in the bracket was played on February 23 against the Skyview Wolverines.