After leading by 11 at halftime Monday night, the Littlefork-Big Falls boys basketball team dropped its fifth game in a row with a 70-63 road loss against Northland.
“We didn’t play defense in the second half,” said Vikings head coach Jeff Maish.
Northland’s senior center, Patrick Kemper, found scoring opportunities inside and ended up with a game-high 37 points.
Four L-BF players scored in double figures. Rylan Henrickson had 20 points, followed by Taylor DeLack with 18, Tommy Manninen with 12 and Jacob Franz with 10.
Ely 83, L-BF 61
The Vikings fell behind by double digits early in Friday’s home game and ended up losing to Ely, 83-61.
“We had a couple of mental breakdowns getting back on defense,” said Maish, who noted the Timberwolves were able to score fast-break points early in the first half when L-BF dug too big of a hole to come back and win.
Henrickson led the Vikings with 20 points, followed by Manninen with 17 and DeLack with 14.
Ely, which is in the running to receive the No. 1 seed in Section 7A, came into the game with only one loss on the season — a 77-67 setback Dec. 14 at International Falls.
Losing streak at five
After having evened their season record at 4-4 on Jan. 22 with a 67-38 win at Northeast Range, the Vikings’ current losing streak began Jan. 25 when they were edged out 65-63 at home against Bigfork, which L-BF defeated 10 days earlier, 54-51.
Northome/Kelliher then won at home Jan. 29 over the Vikings, 62-53, prior to L-BF losing last Thursday at Hill City, 61-55.
The latest loses to Ely and Northland now put the Vikings’ record at 4-9. L-BF will be looking to snap its five-game skid Thursday at Lake of the Woods, a game rescheduled from Tuesday.
