Vikings end season with quick tournament exit

"I'm real proud to have been their coach. They're great kids and they worked hard without a lot of return as far as wins," said Bigfork High School head boys basketball coach Lyle Whiteman of his team after they ended their season by losing both of their games at the Northwest A Divisional Tournament last weekend.

The Vikings faced Polson first, a team that they split with during the regular season, and lost 50-43. Bigfork started the game strong with 19 points, led by Zac Hansen who scored six and Garrett Pewe who scored all five of his points in the first quarter. Defensively, they held the Pirates to 15. But they gave the lead away in the second when they scored just one point while Polson put up 13.

"We had several turnovers and missed a lot of shots," Whiteman said. "That was after the best first quarter we've had all year. We just fell apart."

Pewe, a senior guard for Bigfork, agreed and said that everyone on the team didn't play as well as they could've, including himself.

"In the second quarter I think we just forgot how to play and what works against Polson," Pewe said. "I think we just sort of felt like it was ours for the taking and we just let it slip away."

The Vikings were able to outscore Polson 10-8 in the third, but Polson put up another 14 in the fourth to Bigfork's 13 and took the win.

"We ran out of gas emotionally," Whiteman said. "I don't know why. We had two good games with them earlier this season. We just missed a lot of opportunities."

Brock Boll led Bigfork with 14 points, 12 of which he scored in the second half and had nine rebounds. Boll was six-of-seven from the free-throw line. Hansen scored a total of 12 points, including three 3-pointers. Scott Taylor put up five points and he grabbed eight rebounds. Pewe had seven assists.

The loss to the Pirates sent Bigfork into the consolation bracket where they faced regular season champions Whitefish Saturday morning, who were fresh off an upset to their rivals Columbia Falls Friday night, and the Vikes lost 78-53.

Pewe said that the team was planning on getting a win against Polson and had been focusing their time that week in practice on preparing to play Libby.

"I think that if we would've beat Polson things would've gone differently for us," Pewe said. "We would've played Libby and gone into that game with some momentum and I think we probably would've beat them because both our games were close against them earlier this season."

But that's not how things went, and against the Bulldogs the Vikes got outscored 29-17 in the first half and were never able to catch up.

"Defensively I thought we gave them some trouble and kept them from getting too many shots and they weren't shooting too well either," Whiteman said of the first half.

Bigfork scored just nine in the third quarter to Whitefish's 19.

"Whitefish adjusted to what we were doing better than we adjusted to them," Whiteman said. "They started shooting better and we still struggled to get good shots."

Facing a 48-26 deficit going into the fourth quarter, the Vikings had their work cut out for them, and when it became evident that they wouldn't be staging a comeback they decided to at least have some fun with it. The result was six Bigfork players fouling out in the final quarter, but they put up four 3-pointers, five 2-pointers and were four-for-four from the line for a total of 27 points in their final quarter of the season.

"It was kind of a ridiculous thing," Whiteman said. "Our kids were playing hard and having a good time. We were making the best of a bad situation. They were wanting to play hard and try to get some more shots that way so we just let them go. It worked too. We shot a lot better during that time."

However, the Bulldogs got 33 shots from the line in the fourth, all but nine of which they made, and scored just three field goals, for a total of 30 points.

"I think we played pretty well against them," Pewe said. "The first half was good. We shot a lot better and played better defense."

Pewe had a game high 15 points, which included two 3-pointers and he made three of his five free throws. He had four assists and four steals. Boll was next with nine points and he was three-for-three from the line. He led the Vikes in rebounding with 10. Christian Ker contributed eight points in the form of two 3-pointers and two free-throw shots in two attempts.

The Vikings were without senior starter Jake Milner throughout the tournament as the result of a school related disciplinary action.

"We missed his energy and defense," Whiteman said. "He's always a hard worker."

Senior Leo Daigle was also missing during Saturday's game due to illness.

With upperclassman players missing and facing foul trouble, Whiteman gave some of his standout junior varsity players and a freshmen some time on the court.

"I think overall they did well," Whiteman said. "It was a good experience for them. A lot of them didn't get much experience playing varsity this year. We thought it was a good opportunity for them without taking too much away from the seniors."

Last weekend's losses ended the Vikings' season with a 3-17 record.

"I'm proud of them for sticking together, especially the seniors," Whiteman said. "It would've been really easy for them to quit, both mentally and the team itself. I'm real proud of them for hanging in there and fighting to the end."

The Vikings will lose seven seniors to graduation this year, including Pewe.

"The season didn't go quite like I hoped that it would've," Pewe said. "I was glad that we stayed together as a team and we all stayed close for the most part. I think we played most of the games as hard as we could. We just let some games slip, but for the most part we played the best that we could."