The sound of defeat was a quiet “swish” as sharp-shooting Shoreline Christian Crusaders outscored the Viking boys on Saturday, Jan. 23. Nothing but net, a few too many times. Despite the relentless onslaught, the Vikings remained undaunted, doggedly refusing to relinquish the game until the final buzzer sounded.

“Shoreline is shooting the crap out of us!” observed one fan wryly.

“They made it tough for us; we made it tough for them too, but they hit their shots. They are very, very good shooters,” observed coach Gregg Sasan.

Four of Shoreline’s painfully accurate scorers each put double digits on the board. And a strong defense kept Orcas’ normal high scorers from sinking many baskets, although Henri Bredouw led the scoring for the Vikes with fourteen points. The Crusaders hit the mark with 79% of their free throws, while the Vikings sunk only 46%. Sasan had the Vikings playing zone defense through much of the game, but switched to man to man for the 4th quarter. He said man to man served the Vikings better.

“In zone you get the rebounds. But if they don’t miss the shots, there’s nothing to rebound!”

Refs made more than one hotly contested foul call against the Vikings. When refs blew the whistle on Robbie Padbury for a technical foul for ‘delay of game’, the bleachers thundered with loud boos and hisses from Viking fans, and Orcas coaches could be observed protesting from the bench.

“That amazed me,” said Sasan. “That’s the only call I’ve never heard before. I’m still wondering about it.”

The game got even more exciting as a wild pass from a Shoreline player sailed off the court and well into the stands, bouncing squarely off the skull of a bewildered fan.

The Vikings held the Crusaders to a slim lead in the first quarter, at 16 to 21. But over the next two quarters, Shoreline surged ahead, coming out of the third quarter with a solid 30-point lead, at 28 to 58. The Vikes pushed back hard in the final quarter, scoring 16 points to the Crusaders’ 15. Taylor Diepenbrock drove down to score with only thirty seconds left in the game, and with only six seconds remaining, a stubborn wrestling match had to be called off as a jump ball.

The final score was 44 to 72. The boys will play Friday Harbor at home on Feb. 2 at 6 p.m.