The Cook County High School girls’ varsity basketball team is playing its best basketball at the end of the year, just what every coach wants from his/her team.
On Friday, February 22, the girls traveled to Nashwauk Keewatin to play the 4-19 Spartans and came away with a 63-42 win. It was the Vikings’ last regular season game of the year. Ariana Poyirier led the team with 19 points. Abbie Crawford scored 17, Alyssa Spry had 8, Paisley Smith 8, Rhonnie Poyirier 7, and Katie Peck finished with 4 points.
“The girls played a great overall game after struggling the first half with foul trouble,” said head coach Kelly Hawsen. “We really took over the second half which was nice to see and is great momentum building to the playoffs,” she added.
On offense the team works the ball around the perimeter, sometimes taking a 3-point shot, but often looking for an open lane to the basket. The Vikings have been very good at relentlessly rebounding misses and putting the ball in the basket on second or third attempts.
Vikings upset Carlton
The Vikings played the Carlton Bulldogs on Wednesday, Feb. 27, at Carlton, in a 6 p.m. game and came away with a thrilling 50-49 win to advance in the Section 7A playoffs.
Junior forward Paisley Smith made the winning shot with about 10 seconds to play to upset the 15-12 Carlton Bulldogs. Carlton’s top scorer Alaina Bennett made a three-point shot with 20 seconds to play, and Carlton blocked a Viking shot out of bounds. Paisley made her basket off the inbound pass.
The Vikings led 29-26 at the half, and pulled to a nine-point lead in the second half but Carlton came back to tie the score in a game that stayed tight until the end.
Abbie Crawford led the team with 20 points. Rhonnie Poyirier had her biggest night ever as a Viking, netting 18 points. In a game where every point was important, Rhonnie was 6-9 from the free throw line. Paisley Smith and Ariana Poyirier each had 6 points in the game.
The Vikings play 21-5 Mountain Iron Buhl on Saturday. MIB is ranked 10th at state.
Leave a Reply