Above: Senior guard David Bergstrom scored two of his team leading 17 points against Barnum on this lay-up. Upper right: Going up between two defenders, junior guard Kale Boomer put in this three-footer to keep the Vikings ahead in a razorthin game against the Barnum Bombers. Right: At 6’ 3” Dylan Quaife is not only the tallest Viking player, but also the fastest. Here he uses his speed to beat a host of defenders. Quaife is the fourth highest scorer in the conference with 16.8 points per game average. Barnum doubled up on him every time he touched the ball.
Following the boys’ 50-49 win over the Barnum Bombers on Friday night, February 3, a lot of Viking fans had a hard time talking about the game because they were too hoarse to talk. It was exciting and it was perplexing. The referees’ calls—or lack of calls late in the game—were perplexing, anyway.
The game started with the Vikings showing patience on offense, taking and making the good shot and playing stingy defense. And as always, everybody rebounded on both sides of the half court.
After 10 minutes of play the Vikings led the 13-2 Bombers 22-7.
Led by 6’4” guard Jacob Naslund, Barnum went on a nice run to close the gap to 24-16. But the Vikings’ best all-around player, senior guard David Bergstrom, scored on a slashing drive to the basket. That was followed by a nice rebound by Justin Goldstein who was fouled. Goldstein hit one free throw and the Vikings added another basket by senior forward Dylan Quaife to push their lead back to 32-22. But a huge 3-point basket by Barnum guard Branden King at the buzzer stunned the Vikings and cut their lead to 32-25 at the half.
Junior guard Colin Everson started the second half by hitting a big three of his own, and once again the Vikings led by 10. But baskets were hard to come by. Several minutes went by before the Vikings scored again behind a jump shot for two points by Bergstrom. Senior guard Mike Sjogren hit a big three to push the Vikings’ cushion to 9 points as they led 42-33 with less then 10 minutes to play.
As time wound down, Barnum slowly but surely caught up. With 2:48 on the clock, Kale Boomer hit a clutch shot to push the Vikings’ lead to 48-42. But Naslund and the Bombers scored four straight points and the score was 48-46.
It was Boomer’s turn again. The junior guard doesn’t always score a lot of points but tends to score when the team needs it most. He and Quaife have a knack for hitting the big shot or big free throw when the Vikings must have points. He didn’t disappoint, shrugging a mugging defender and scoring two points to give the Vikings a 4-point lead with less than a minute to play.
Naslund hit a three-pointer on Barnum’s next possession and the Vikings’ lead was down to one. Barnum was playing tight, scrappy defense and it wasn’t long before they had the ball back. What looked like fouls and traveling to Viking fans was missed by the men in striped shirts. The referees weren’t calling anything and it was getting to be a better game than it should have been.
On Barnum’s next play Naslund raced down the court and went into the lane completely out of control, running over Boomer who was standing as still as a statue as he took the charge but no charging call was made. Good thing Naslund missed and Boomer lived. It was a big hit. And it was just one of about 10 calls that inexplicably went Barnum’s way in the last half of the game.
Play was frantic at the end. Boomer made a great steal but the Vikings couldn’t hold onto the ball. As time ticked off of the clock Barnum had one last chance to score. Naslund flung a long shot down the court but the ball caromed off of the backboard and the Vikings won, sending their record to 15-1 and sending a happy, exhausted, and somewhat hoarse crowd home.
After the game Head Coach Mitch Dorr said, “Barnum has a really nice squad. I thought our guys started the game incredibly focused and determined to compete. We had a great first half of basketball as we played aggressive, attacking the basket and making extra passes to get guys open shots.
“The worst thing that could happen was halftime because we were really on a roll defensively.
“In the second half we found it difficult to play with a lead as we got a little protective, which lessened our aggressiveness on the offensive end of the court.
“In addition, Barnum did a great job of packing their zone to stop Dylan inside. While they did a great job of holding Dylan to 9 points, David had a monster game, scoring 17 points, grabbing 13 rebounds, and dishing out 8 assists. He also took over down the stretch to seal the win for us.
“I thought Justin Goldstein played great off the bench; the one point he scored ended up being the difference in the game.
“The story of the night however, is that we held Barnum to 49 points, 25 below their average of 74.
“It was a crazy two weeks with six games packed into it. Our guys showed their resilience this week,” said Dorr.
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