The Vanier Vikings don’t want to be a one dimensional team this year, in fact, they have high expectations of being an all round team that is hard to play against. With a more veteran team, the Vikings are hoping to bring everything together and make strong strides this season.
Despite a short bench, the Riverview/Cornerstone Falcons pushed the Vikings as far as they could in the senior boys basketball opening night on Tuesday evening, with the Vikings pulling out an 81-44 win.
“It was a good win. It was a game where we had work out those first game jitters. That was obvious in the first quarter, as we were pretty slow,” said Vanier’s head coach David Tardif.
The Falcons trailed throughout the game as they also started out slow, but they did beat the Vikings in one area of the game — rebounding.
“It is what it is…they played well,” said Falcons coach, Cain Pinfold. “We beat them on the boards, but we just lacked our offence. It will come, it is the first game of the year.”
The Falcons have six Grade 12s on their roster, but are inexperienced, including one that is an exchange student from Mexico who has never played the sport before and two others that haven’t played before on the roster.
“There will be a change by the end of the year,” Pinfold said. “It will come…that is my job out there. Lots of coaching.”
Although the Vikings realized they had a much longer bench than the Falcons, they remember how last year went. In their first game last season, Vanier easily beat Riverview/Cornerstone, but the Falcons got better throughout the season, got better and pushed Vanier for a playoff spot late in the year.
“What they had, they brought and were good. They will get better for next time. We are expecting them to come back better,” said Tardif. We have to look at the case that they had a short bench and we can’t get too confident because we will face teams that do have a bench.”
For more on this story, read an upcoming edition of the Times-Herald.
