The Vikings practice plays in the gym, walking through them early in the season. The team is now one win and one loss after less then three weeks of practice and play. Staff photo/Brian Larsen
Vikings’ Head Coach Andy Feddema’s first game at the CCHS Vikings’ helm came against a formidable opponent, the South Ridge Panthers. He’s been teaching the team defense, but it’s almost impossible to teach defense that will stop an opponent who towers over your players, and that was the situation when the boys took the floor at home on Friday, January 22.
The Panthers players stood 6’8”, 6’7”, 6’4”, 6’4”, 6’3”, 6’3”, 6’1”, 6’0”, 6’0”, and four kids (two ninth-graders) were under 6’0”. The really bad news is that the Panther’s two tallest players are sophomores, and the next two tallest kids are juniors, so no doubt the team will gain more height next year. Yeah.
Meanwhile, the Vikings’ line up consisted of Derek Smith, a 5’9” sophomore guard; Enrique Henriquez, a 5’6” senior guard; Jacob Dorr, a 5’11” junior forward; Tate Crawford, a 5’10” senior guard. And sophomore Paul Dorr, who is listed at 5’10” and also plays guard. Unless players can jump like kangaroos, they don’t have much chance against a team the Panthers’ size, and the Vikings posed no threat to the Panthers on this night.
Tate Crawford (10) and Paul Dorr try mightily to stop one of the tall South Ridge Panther players from scoring underneath the hoop. There was little the Vikings could do against a team as tall as the Panthers, and the Vikings lost by more than 30 points.
Besides having a decided height advantage, the Panthers also had a hot shooting three-point team; meanwhile, the Vikings couldn’t buy a basket from downtown.
Both teams ran a spread offense that used a series of picks and back door cuts and kick-outs to open shooters who were usually standing behind the three-point arc.
At half time the score was 47-10 in favor of the Panthers. That said, the Vikings ran their offense as well as could be expected and gave a hundred percent on defense on the court.
“From a score perspective this is not the result we want, obviously,” said Coach Feddema. “We are learning what the speed and intensity of a varsity game is like, and how we need to match that to be competitive. I am very proud of how hard our guys played. They worked just as hard the last two minutes as the first two minutes.”
The final score was 65-16 but the score didn’t indicate effort, as noted be their coach. There was no way for the Vikings to defend underneath the basket, but the kids worked hard on their skills, and despite the final score, they indeed played well.
In terms of team stats, Jacob Dorr and Derek Smith each had six points to lead the team in scoring.
Because of the pandemic rules, only designated students and family members were allowed to attend the game in person. However, the school attempted to live stream the boys’ and girls’ games. But on this night, the live stream failed to work, and the live stream feed to the school’s You Tube Channel failed. Perhaps the signal was blocked by all of those tall Panther players on the court.
Vikings beat McGregor
After being behind most of the game, a determined Viking team found a way to come back and take a home win against the McGregor Mercuries (Mercs) this past Tuesday.
With the score tied at 34 and time winding down on the clock the Vikings finally got the scoring surge they needed to pull away and beat the McGregor Mercs 42-34.
Paul Dorr hit the go ahead three to put the Vikings up 37-34. After rebounding a Merc miss, the Vikings took the ball down the court and Jacob Dorr was fouled in the act of shooting. Jacob calmly made both free throws.
Back on defense, the Vikings played a tough man-to-man defense and forced a poor shot. Paul Dorr rebounded the ball and was promptly fouled to stop the clock. Paul added another point, and after forcing another long shot that missed badly, Derek Smith rebounded the ball and was fouled. Smith closed out the scoring by nailing both his free throws and the Vikings walked off the court victors in a hard fought game.
“The boys played really hard tonight; it was good to see us claw our way back into the game and ultimately seal it with a 15-0 run to end the game,” Coach Andy Feddema said. “Some guys stepped up for us tonight, Derek Smith had 10 points, 10 steals, and six rebounds. Paul Dorr had 18 points, including two big three’s at the end of the game. Tate Crawford was a battler, scoring six points and grabbing eight rebounds, six of which were offensive rebounds. Jacob Dorr had 6 points, and Ethan Poulin chipped in 2.”
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