The Orcas Viking basketball team hit the ground running in their first week of play with a win against North Sound Christian, 51-40.

Then on Friday, the Vikings fell to Overlake Christian, a 1A school, 53-38, but bounced back against Christian Faith High School on Saturday, getting out fast in front and creating a wide point spread. The Vikings beat that team soundly 73-30.

“Christian Faith is a 2B team from down in the Seatac area,” Coach Greg Sasan said. “We won’t start our league play until Dec. 15. These games are great for warm ups for the team.”

On Saturday, guard Tyler Nigretto led Viking scoring with 31 points and right behind him was Henri Bredouw with 17 points.

“We had a combination of fast breaks, especially where Tyler was concerned,” Sasan said, “The guys were able to get lots of steals from the zone press. With the shot clock for boys you’re going to see more of that.”

The Vikings have several versatile players. Bredouw was in there with multiple three pointers, and Daniel Janssen scored nine points for the Vikings as well.

“The teams we played protected the posts so well, that we had to drive in hard or shoot outside,” Sasan commented.

“I think several of the players are making the switch over in their minds from football season to basketball right now. They’re all just working on getting the right touch on the ball,” he said.

Starting on Saturday for the Vikings were Nigretto, Bredouw, Michael Langworthy, Taylor Diepenbrock and Janssen.

The Vikings played aggressive but smart basketball, and they came away from Friday’s loss against Overlake Christian knowing that they had to work on getting back on defense faster.

“Overlake moved quickly into fast breaks and that caught us off guard. We just didn’t get back into position fast enough and that was a wake up call to the guys,” Sasan said.

Fouling was moderate, but the Vikings stood out in their ability to communicate with each other.

“There was a lot of chatter out there. They talked with each other really well on defense, on our press,” Sasan said. “On Friday night we were worried about other things and they stopped talking to one another. It helps so much when there’s chatter on the court. And they got that Saturday.”

Last year, the Vikings ended their league 2-10.

“We are always trying to improve every day, every practice,” Sasan said. “If we improve in practice every day that’s really good.”

Orcas basketball’s first league game is on Tuesday, Dec. 15 at Orcas against Concrete. Darrington and Friday Harbor, who had the same record, were co-champions in Orcas’ league in 2008.

“It’s a tough league for the boys,” Sasan said, “All the teams in our league work really hard. The teams to beat are Darrington, Mt. Vernon Christian, Darrington, Friday Harbor – we really have our work cut out for us.”