The La Conner Braves counted coup on the Viking boys Friday night with an effective full court press and unstoppable drives to the basket.

“La Conner’s number one in the league for a reason,” Coach Gregg Sasan said. “We disrupted them a lot in the first half. I thought we played three good quarters, but we just didn’t have a good 4th quarter.”

The Braves went on a scoring spree in the fourth quarter, sinking 28 points to the Vikings’ seven.

“We lost a little bit of our edge,” said assistant coach Jason Kraayeveld. “We were having a hard time with their press; they were going on long runs and we couldn’t stop ‘em.”

The Vikings are already looking ahead to future contests.

“We film every game so we can see what we need to work on,” explained Sasan.

His current hit list includes: “Moving our feet, coming back to the ball, having more confidence in ourselves when we face a tough opponent like that. We didn’t protect the ball, we didn’t get it inside.”

The Braves had great passing and shooting accuracy, and defensively pressured the Vikings into a lot of turnovers. A deep bench allowed the Braves to maintain a high energy level throughout the game.

The Orcas boys fought hard to the end, with a final score of 39 to 67. The game puts the Vikings at 3-3 in league and 6-6 overall.