Freshman Wolves player Blake Stokes pushes hard to get the inside move against the Vikings.
Viking Kayin McCay goes one-on-one defensively against Wrangell’s Jacob Marshall. Freshman Wolves player Blake Stokes pushes hard to get the inside move against the Vikings.
The Wolves basketball squad suffered a pair of losses last weekend to the Petersburg Vikings during Wrangell’s 2013 homecoming celebration – the latest in a string of defeats for the boys’ team and head coach Ray Stokes.
After a low scoring first period on Friday night, when Wrangell trailed just 6-5, the Petersburg offense kicked into high gear in the second to take a 24-14 advantage – spurred mostly by the defensive play of Vikings Clayton Franklin and Jared Volk, and the big offense of Tristan Welton, Kayin McCay and Colby Bell who combined for 15 points.
The Wolves were held to just 14 points in the second period, with top-scorer Roger Miller adding 5 points on a bucket and trey. Mason Dingwall put two up on the board, while senior Ryan Reeves dropped a pair from the line.
Defensively, Wrangell’s Blaine Wilson was scoreless but “hacktastic” as he made aggressive and demanding work of the Viking’s offense all night – and had five fouls in the game to prove it.
Petersburg kept an even tighter lid on the Wolves in the third period, holding them to just 6 points off a pair of deuces by Miller and a single two-pointer by Robert Marshall. Comparatively, the Vikings scored 16 points in the quarter to go up 43-20.
The final period wasn’t much better for the Wolves as Viking’s Jared Volk lit up the night with a pair of three-pointers and the Wrangell team once again added just 6 points with Tyler Gillen, Blake Stokes, Aaron Howell and Dingwall contributing.
The final score of 59-26 told the story in the end as coach Stokes attested to after the game.
“We were playing strong a ways through the second quarter, but then we got behind a point or two, and then again, and then I don’t know. We just let it get away,” Stokes said. “I tried to talk to the team after the game and figure why we were just giving up on the game. We’re not a very good come-from-behind team right now. When you shoot around 25 percent from the free throw line you are not ever going to win games.”
Petersburg head coach Rick Brock also said he thought the game’s outcome hinged on the level of play seen by both teams right before the halftime break.
“In the second period, on the defensive side of things, we put a little more pressure on the basketball,” Brock said. “We sped the game up because in the first period I thought Wrangell was playing the game at the pace they wanted to play. That put a lot of pressure on us, so from the second quarter on, we were able to take them out of their game and it worked to our benefit.”
Saturday night’s game was a nail-biter and saw the Wolves lead Petersburg 27-20 at the halftime break. Wrangell kept up their offensive game enough to hold off a Viking’s surge in the third period when the game was tied up 36-36.
Petersburg fought back hard, however, in the final period of play, outscoring the Wolves 13-18 for a final score of 54-49 in favor of the Vikings.
Jacob Marshall led Wrangell on Saturday night with 20 points, while Reeves added 13 and Howell put up 9 points of his own, including a trey from deep downtown. Stokes finished with 5 points, with Robert Marshall putting up a single bucket for 2 points.
Welton and Bell led the Vikings offense with 18 and 13 points, respectively.
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