Theresa Morrin went up and by the defender on this play to score two points for the Vikings. Morrin leads the team in scoring this year with a 10 point per game average. The girls go on the road for the next four games before coming home to play Moose Lake/Willow River at home on Friday, January 18.
The Cook County High School Viking girls chalked up two wins last week on the road and at home, defeating the Southridge Panthers 51-47 and the Cromwell Cardinals 51-39.
Vikings pounce on Panthers
One month ago the Vikings defeated the Southridge Panthers 44-33 at home in a close contest. On January 3 the Vikings traveled to play at Southridge to face the Panthers on the Panther’s home court and this time the score was even closer, but the game wasn’t as close as the final score.
“We got up by as many as 15 points and would let them get back to within 4 in the second half, but then we would pull away again,” said Head Coach Todd Toulouse.
The Vikings were up 6 points at halftime, 26-20, and were outscored 27-25 in the second half but held on for the 51-47 win.
“We played tough defense when it mattered. We ran the offense that we put in after watching film of the first game,” Toulouse said, adding, “I was happy to see that what we wanted to do actually worked. We were able to beat their 2-3 modified (high-post) zone.”
Leading the Vikings in scoring were Kaitlynn Linnell, 15 points; Theresa Morrin, 14 points; Breana Peterson, 8 points; Essence Haines, 6 points; Lily Gruber Schulz, 6 points and Leah Utities, 2 points.
In one telling statistic, no Viking player scored a 3-point basket in the game.
Mikayala Diesiak’s 18 points led the Southridge Panthers.
Vikings beat Cromwell
Playing in front of a home crowd on Friday, January 4, the Vikings raced off to a 15-4 lead over the visiting Cromwell Cardinals and led 23-10 before the Cardinals made a run at them late in the first half—even hitting a long 3-point shot as time expired—to send the Vikings into the locker room up 30-20.
During the first half the Vikings handled the Cromwell press well, and greatly reduced their turnovers in the game by slowing the ball down on the offensive side of their play. Guards Breana Peterson and Leah Utities had few turnovers, often dribbling or passing out of trouble against a well-executed press.
Coming off the break the Cardinals scored the first 5 points and the Viking lead was down to a jittery 5 points. The ball wasn’t falling for the Vikings and the Cardinals were coming on strong.
Just as things were getting tight, Lily Gruber-Schulz hit a two-point shot and although Cromwell came right back to score 2 of its own, the lid was finally off of the Viking basket and the Vikings were able to score again, this time behind a Theresa Morrin mid-range 2-pointer.
After a nice defensive stop, Gruber- Schulz once again got free underneath and scored another basket to bring the Vikings’ lead back to 36-27.
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