One of the new features of senior guard Pete Sutton’s game this year is his ability to dunk the basketball. Pete has slam dunked at least a half a dozen times in games this season. The highflying, 6’2” guard is averaging 27 points per game for the Vikings, an average rarely if ever reached by another Viking player. Photo courtesy of Bruce Johnson
Last Thursday and Friday, the Cook County boys’ basketball team ran into back-to-back buzz saws in the form of Class AA Duluth Marshall Hilltoppers and the Class AAA Esko Eskimos. Both games were played at home, and the Class A Vikings had their moments in each, but couldn’t prevail.
Vikings versus Marshall
Duluth Marshall had a good shooting team and one of the best big men in the area, center Collin Patton and a speedy, sweet-shooting guard in Samuel Lohn.
“We played well for much of the first half, “ said head Coach Colin Everson. “However, they got away from us in the second half. They had a real good shooting team and maybe the best big man we have faced this year.”
Pete Sutton led the team in scoring with 25 points. Jordan Porter had 14, and Tate Crawford tallied four points to end the Vikings’ scoring. The Vikings lost 81-43. Marshall is now 12-8 on the year while the Vikings record fell to 5-12.
Vikings fall to Esko
For the first four minutes of play, it looked like the February 14 game against Esko was going to be a good game. The score was knotted 11-11, and the Vikings were playing well. A pick and roll at the free-throw line freed up Jordan Porter to get a beautiful pass from Pete Sutton, and Porter scored the easy, uncontested layup. However, that was about the last easy bucket the Vikings would get.
Esko went on a 13 point run to lead 24-11 and kept the pedal to the meddle, taking a 48-22 lead into the half-time break.
Still, despite being down at the half, the Vikings should have been closer. They missed a half dozen baskets underneath the hoop and had several long shots rim out. Some of that was Esko’s stingy defense, and some of that was just plain bad luck.
If anyone thought the Eskimos were going to give the Vikings a break during the second half of play, they were mistaken. Esko scored the first 17 points to go up 65-22 before starting to substitute players. By then, it didn’t matter, and the Vikings fell 86-39.
Pete Sutton finished with 20 points, Jordan Porter 15, Jacob Dorr two, and Austin Lincoln had two points to complete the Vikings points.
“We had two back to back games against two very good teams,” Coach Everson said. “It was good for us to play against some quality opponents here near the last part of our regular season. We just weren’t able to maintain our level of play throughout the whole game. Overall, it was a great opportunity to learn from these two teams.”
The Vikings’ last home game is against Nashwauk-Keewatin on Friday, February 21. The game will start at 6:30 p.m. On February 28, the Vikings will travel to Fond du Lac to play their last game of the regular season.
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