Vikings skirt past Wave

The Greenwave basketball team braving winter mountain roads was worth it Tuesday, as they arrived for a hard-fought competition against the South Tahoe Vikings.

After an intense back and forth game, South Tahoe edged Fallon by one point, 50-49.

Things were fairly one-sided at the start of the game. The Vikings were up by seven before Fallon got on the board. The Greenwave fought hard, but couldn’t overtake the opposition and ended the quarter trailing 16-7.

The Fallon players recovered in the second quarter. They pulled South Tahoe back and kept them from advancing. By halftime, Fallon was six points behind, 27-21.

The game changed once the second half began. Fallon was struggling to break through the Viking defense; however, a surge by Elijah Jackson tied the game then sent the Greenwave over. Taking the lead reinvigorated Fallon, causing a stalemate as the teams fought to get ahead. South Tahoe broke free with a trey and after a basket by Fallon, sat in the lead 40-39.

As the final quarter began, both teams were on fire. The Vikings opened their lead but Fallon pulled them back. With moments left on the clock, John Cooley tied the game at 49 points. As the teams fought to break the stalemate Cooley fouled, giving South Tahoe’s Dylan Gooding a free throw with one second left. The first shot went in, making the score 50-49; the second shot bounced off and was caught by Dalton Kaady who sent a Hail Mary pass flying to the Fallon basket as the buzzer rang. The ball bounced off the backboard though, and ended the game.

Elijah Jackson led the Greenwave with 18 points from two treys and five rebounds. Christian Nemeth tallied 10 points with two free throws and Cooley scored eight points on two treys, two free throws and three rebounds.

Donald Schank, assistant coach for the Greenwave, said he had a good group on the floor for most of the game. He said Jackson, Nemeth and Thomas Steele started working well together on defense and offense.

“I was proud of what I saw,” he said.

Schank said Fallon played a good defensive game and took care of the Tahoe shooters. He recalled Tahoe has an average of scoring 67 points per game and said Fallon holding them to 50 was an accomplishment.

“I was very happy with just the way that they played, how hard they played,” Schank said. “That was a hard game.”

Head coach Brad Barton has said there were issues with rebounding. Against Tahoe, though, Schank said the Greenwave made more rebounds. He said Barton gave the players special drills to help with rebounds.

Tonight the Greenwave hosts Dayton for their Winterfest game at 7:30 p.m. Schank said in their last game, the team had issues with rebounds, and several points were lost to Dayton getting a second shot at the basket. Fallon also had issues with baseline defense.

“We’re looking at some of our defensive scheme,” Schank said. “What we’re doing is to minimize baseline drives and to (improve) our rebounding; we’ve been working on it the last week and it showed against Tahoe, hopefully it’ll show against Dayton and we can keep them off the boards. Limit them to one shot or no shots.”