Tate Crawford battles through the defense on his way to a basket for the Vikings. Crawford scored four points against the Vikings in a loss to the South Ridge Panthers on Friday, January 3. Photo courtesy of Bruce Johnson
Last Friday night at the Pam Taylor gymnasium, the CCHS boys’ basketball team took on a tall order when it faced the South Ridge Panthers.
Standing in the Vikings way was burly Panther senior center 6’8” Kayden Palmi. Palmi must weigh about 300 pounds. It’s hard to block out someone whose large enough to block out the sun when you are standing near him, and the Vikings didn’t have much luck moving him out of the lane. When Palmi wasn’t taking up most of the space in the paint, the Vikings had to deal with a very skilled 6’6” freshman center Austin Josephson, and 6’5” freshman Slayton Strochein, who also played center.
And if those three didn’t give the Vikings enough trouble, trouble by another name came from Panther senior guard, the 6’1” hot-shooting Ben Wood, who early in the game put on a show from behind the 3-point line.
The Vikings did have their moments. Down 34-17, Pete Sutton hit a long three. The Vikings made an excellent defensive stop at the other end of the court, and Sutton came back to nail a 15-foot jump shot for two. On the next play, Sutton stole the ball near midcourt, and with no one in front of him, he dribbled into the lane and went up high in the air and slammed the ball through the hoop.
That run of points made it 34-24, and it looked like the Vikings were going to play their way back into contention. Unfortunately, the Panthers scored the next nine points and went into the locker room up 43-24.
The Vikings never could figure out how to solve the Panther’s 1-3-1 defense, and despite getting 28 points from senior guard Pete Sutton, the Vikings fell 68-44.
Jordan Porter finished with nine points, Tate Crawford had four, and Adam Dorr, Keegan Morrison, and Austin Lincoln each had three points in the contest.
When asked about South Ridge head coach Colin Everson said, “Yeah, they had some size on us. We need to be more focused on doing the little things. Little by little, we are doing something better each game in different places. Hopefully, we can start putting all the pieces together in all parts of the game. If we can do that, I think we can have a really strong second half of the season coming up here.”
“We are continually trying to raise the bar and set a high expectation for the boys; each game we are learning what our next step needs to be. I’m excited to see how we can grow as a team throughout the next few weeks.”
Vikings versus Lakeview Christian Academy
The Vikings picked up their first win of the season against a young Lakeview Christian Academy on Monday, January 6, in a matchup of winless teams.
On paper, the 0-7 Lions and 0-5 Vikings looked like it would be a good contest, but this didn’t turn out to be much of a game as the Vikings were clearly superior, tacking a 72-44 win.
Senior guard Pete Sutton got to the basket often, throwing down two slams as he acquired 24 points. Senior forward Jordan Porter, who shook off a few hard falls, also took the ball to the basket pretty much at will, ending his night with 23 points.
Tate Crawford finished with 7 points, Adam Dorr 7, Austin Lincoln 4, Jacob Dorr 3, and Derek Smith scored 2 points.
Keegan Morrison didn’t score but played great defense all night long, making quite a few steals against Lakeview ball handlers.
Give Viking’s head coach Colin Everson a lot of credit; he played his entire bench all night long, giving his younger players a chance to gain varsity experience.
As for Lakeview, they fielded a team with a lot of freshmen and sophomores. In a few years, they will again be a good team.
The boys continue their play at home on Friday, January 10, against Floodwood with the game scheduled for 4:45 p.m. The next day the Vikings play Ely at home at 2:45 p.m. On Tuesday, January 14, Silver Bay comes to town to play on a game that starts at 6:30 p.m.
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