Above: Just an 8th grader, Essence Haines, No. 34, has come on strong for the Vikings, giving her teammates valuable minutes off the bench. Essence is both a good shooter and tough defender. Right: Breanna Peterson used her speed and superb ball-handling abilities to blow by the defender and set up a beautiful pass to Kaitlynn Linnell underneath the basket. Linnell scored an easy basket on the play. Peterson led her teammates in scoring against the Ely Timberwolves with 15 points.
Four games in six days were too much for the girls’ varsity basketball team.
On Monday, January 15 they traveled to Cherry and lost 61-46 in overtime. The next day the players boarded another bus and went to Cromwell and lost by 5 points to a team they had beaten earlier. On Friday they squared off against the Moose Lake/ Willow River Rebels at home and lost by 15 points in a game that they led early and looked like they could have won. The next day they got back on the bus and went to Ely where they lost to the Timberwolves 47-38.
Forgive them if they are all singing, “The wheels on the bus go round and round. Round and round. ….” That is, when they aren’t trying to catch a wink or a nod or get some homework done while traveling.
Below is a summary of the last two games mentioned. The first two games were covered in last week’s News-Herald.
Moose Lake/Willow River tops Vikings 59-42
Against Moose Lake/ Willow River the Vikings had a big rebounding advantage early, however, the two-foot put backs wouldn’t drop and the Vikings squandered chance after chance to extend an early 9-4 lead and trailed 25-19 at half time to a team that was often shooting from another zip code.
The Rebels’ offensive strategy seemed simple enough, when in doubt, shoot. So shoot they did. Their “shoot first and ask questions later” strategy made for some interesting basketball. Some of their long distance shots connected, while others were air balls. It mattered little to the Rebels if the ball went in or not. They were happy to launch shot after shot no matter what the results were.
Still, the Rebels hit most of their free throws down the stretch when the Vikings were forced to foul and pulled away, winning 59-42.
And if the Rebels weren’t exactly shooting a high percentage, the Vikings were worse from the field. Albeit most of the Viking’s misses were from close range.
“We hit 14 out of 69 shots, and yes, we did miss a great deal of open lay-ups,” said Head Coach Todd Toulouse.
Both teams ended the game with 44 rebounds while the Vikings had 22 turnovers to the Rebels 18.
Theresa Morrin and Lily Gruber-Schulz each ended up with a double/double. Morrin finished her night with 13 points and 12 boards while Gruber-Schulz netted 11 points and tallied 10 rebounds. Leah Utities scored 3 points and grabbed 11 boards while Kaitlynn Linnell scored 4 points and had 9 rebounds. Breana Peterson scored 11 points for the game and had a fistful of assists.
Ely beats Vikings 47-38
A tired group of Vikings played spirited basketball, coming back strong after being down by a huge margin early in the contest, but lost to the Ely Timberwolves on Saturday, January 19.
“We were down 22-0 before we scored,” said Coach Toulouse.
“We ended up losing 47-38. We had 12 turnovers before we even scored. If we eliminate that bad start then we win the game running away. We had a total of 62 rebounds and they had 43. Many of our offensive rebounds were from us not making easy little shots and lay-ups again.”
One area that has plagued the Vikings was turnovers. “We lost the turnover battle 26-18,” said Toulouse, who added, “Once again we didn’t give up and I was extremely proud at how they played the second half.”
Breana Peterson led her teammates with 15 points, 5 rebounds and 5 steals. Theresa Morrin had 8 points and 9 rebounds while Lily Gruber- Schulz added 7 points and had an astounding 30 rebounds! Kaitlynn Linnell netted 6 points and had 8 rebounds while Leah Utities scored 2 points and had 6 rebounds.
On Thursday, January 24 the girls played the Northeast Range Nighthawks at home, then traveled to play the Carlton Bulldogs the next night. Silver Bay comes to town on Monday, January 28. Varsity action starts at 4:45 p.m.
Come out and cheer for your Vikings!
Leave a Reply