Vikings win two conference games, remain undefeated in 7B

A fourth quarter loss turned to a win, a battle to the end and foul trouble that led to bench players who rose to the occasion, made a busy week for the Vikings basketball team.

The Vikings came out of last week with two conference wins against Mission (St. Ignatius) and Troy, and one non-conference loss to Columbia Falls.

On Tuesday, Mission fell to Bigfork in the first quarter 18-8 and fought their way back scoring 14 points in each of the remaining quarters. The Bulldogs pulled ahead of the Vikings in the fourth quarter, only to lose 58-50. Ian Lorang led the way with 15, and Cody Dopps and Austin Jordt tied with 13 points each.

Bigfork boys head basketball coach Kurt Paulson said he had to give credit to Mission because they played hard and scrappy, forcing some turnovers, loose balls and the Vikings to come from behind in the fourth quarter by scoring 17 points to Mission's 14.

“Despite going behind in the fourth quarter, they didn’t panic,” Paulson said.

They dug their heels in and kept shooting and rebounding. The Vikes out rebounded Mission 39-28. Which is good, because Bigfork finished under 40 percent of their shots.

That was the story for the rest of the week as well. The boys shot 38 percent against Columbia Falls on Thursday and 30 percent on Friday against Troy.

And although they out shot Columbia Falls, who only hit 35 percent of their shots, the Vikes lost in the final minutes of a back-and-forth game against the defending state champions 53-47.

“We battled them right to the end of the game,” said Paulson “A couple of turnovers at the end of the game hurt us. We didn’t take care of the ball in crunch time.”

Bigfork had 20 to Columbia Falls 17.

Dopps put up the game high of 16 points and pulled five rebounds. Lorang added 13 to the score.

The Vikes went into Friday night’s game against Troy with a loss that didn’t phase them. They outscored the Trojans 56-44. Lorang hit the most with 16 points, Jordt hit 15 and Connor Coleman put away eight. Bigfork found themselves in foul trouble early in the game and Paulson had to make some changes.

“We had big sparks off the bench in that Troy game,” Paulson said.

Coleman also pulled five rebounds and Tyler Kirby played hard defensively with a couple of blocked shots.

A week of hard games did yield something outside of basketball for three of the boys who took charges in the game. Paulson said he had a player take a charge in each game, and for that he awarded each a milkshake.

Tyler Kirby took one against Mission, Dillon Fraley took one from Columbia Falls and Jackson Boese took one from Troy.

After the week off, the Vikings are home on Friday against Thompson Falls at 7 p.m. and will compete in Florence on Saturday.