By Nathan Kanter

Bright future for senior boys Vikings despite losses at Hoopla

Mar 24, 2017 | 2:13 PM

The North Battleford Comprehensive High School senior boys basketball team fell in both of their games at Hoopla – 80-70 to Bishop Mahoney in the quarter-finals and then 82-70 in the consolation semifinals to Centennial – but that shouldn’t overshadow this team’s potential.

In both games, the Vikings, which is a very young team, were right there with the opposition.

“This is the pinnacle of high school basketball,” Vikings head coach Jamie Sommerfeld said after Friday morning’s loss to Centennial. “Making it to this level, being one of the top teams in the province, as a staff and as a city, we’re very proud of these kids and they’re young. There are a lot of exciting things for them in the future. Just getting here is a win. And I think that’s something that we need to celebrate.”

The two games at the provincial tournament presented different kinds of challenges for the Vikings.

As not only a young team, but one that is also scarce on size, mismatches were bound to happen. That is one of the reasons Sommerfeld believes his team fell short in the quarters against the Saints on Thursday night.

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“It was about five minutes in the second quarter [where] we ended up running into some mismatch issues,” Sommerfeld said. “That’s when they got that 10-point run on us and as much as we battled and the boys played very well, we just couldn’t recover. At this level, when you give that kind of cushion, it’s tough to regain that lead. You can push, but then you tap your bench and you’ve got to give some rest to them.

“[It wasn’t] an effort thing or anything like that. It wasn’t even a mental lapse. More than anything it was a mismatch as far as bodies goes.”

And against Centennial in the consolation semifinals on Friday, that problem presented itself once more, as the Chargers had even more size.

Plus, they have eight Grade 12 players.

“It was their sheer size,” Sommerfeld said, when asked what challenges the Vikings faced Friday. “They have some size and maturity on us. So that did create, at times, some difficulties for us. When you’re dealing with that kind of maturity and growth of the body, that can give you some issues until you can match up with that.”

NBCHS has just three Grade 12 teammates.

Because of that youth, turnovers also proved to be a recurring issue.

If they had been limited, the results very well could have been different, which is why the Vikings head coach said taking care of the ball is the number one lesson they learned.

“We have to control the things we can control,” Sommerfeld said. “The things we can control are not turning over the ball with unforced errors. Unforced errors gave us issues for about five minutes in each game, and at the end of the day, that was the difference.”

Sommerfeld also made sure to credit the Chargers for their strong shooting and how they adapted their defence, which was not something he expected.

“They’re not typically a great shooting team, but credit to Centennial, they kind of went lights out and they were firing on all cylinders,” he said. “[And] they adjusted very well [on defence]. We had no issues with their diamond and one, or their 3-2, but then they switched to a 2-1-2, which we hadn’t seen all year. And then when they did that, it threw us a little bit out of our rhythm.”

The guards on the Vikings remained the focal point of the team’s offence all season long, although some shooters struggled this weekend, which also didn’t help.

On the defensive side of things, giving up 80 points in back-to-back games is certainly not ideal as well. But some of that has to do with the Vikings’ style of play.

“A lot of our games are going to be high scoring just by the nature of basketball that we play. It’s a lot of run and gun; a lot of shooting,” Sommerfeld said. “Those high scores are kind of the nature of the game but yes we give up way too many buckets.”

As the team matures, the defence is bound to get better, and if the Vikings’ post players can take that next step, this team could be very dangerous nest season.

“We do rely heavily upon [on guards],” Sommerfeld said. “It’s our bigs, our post, that need to elevate their game and if they can do that this team is going to be very, very special in the next year to two years.”

nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca

@NathanKanter11