Vikings come back from the dead to win

Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2006

Whitman girls basketball coach Peter Kenah has an unwavering confidence in his young charges. But even he was a little worried when the Vikings could muster only two points in the entire first quarter of Thursday’s come-from-behind, 52-41 victory at Springbrook.

But he vehemently paced the sidelines Thursday, shouting encouragement to his struggling squad, reminding it of its potential. And, after cutting the Blue Devils’ 12-point lead to six by halftime, the Vikings (3-1 overall, 2-0 in the Montgomery 4A East Division) outscored Springbrook (5-1, 1-1 in the 4A East) 35-18 in the second half.

‘‘Well, I definitely wouldn’t say I thought we had that one in the bag, but I definitely didn’t lose hope,” Kenah said. ‘‘I thought it was huge that we were able to cut their lead to six by halftime. That gave us some momentum. I was just trying to get the girls to compete. That was one of the three C’s we’d talked about. You have to be competitive. You have to have confidence and you have to be composed.”

The Vikings struck first on junior forward Erin Brown’s move to the rim in the game’s second minute. Whitman then remained scoreless until the third minute of the second quarter, allowing the Blue Devils to gain control of the game.

Whitman looked awkward and flustered early. But the mark of a good a team is the ability to find a way to win when nothing seems to be working, of taking a completely negative situation and turning it around quickly. And, led by Brown (10 points, eight rebounds) and seniors Zoë Walsh (11 points), Julia McCabe (11) and Laura Yockey (10 points, five rebounds), that’s exactly what the Vikings did.

‘‘I’m so proud of these girls and how mentally tough they were,” Kenah said. ‘‘To score just two points in the first quarter and be able to come back and win, they’re just such a mentally tough group.”

As Whitman struggled to find its way into Thursday’s contest, Springbrook was on its game early. Backed by senior guard Eryn Withers’ strength behind the arc — she tallied 15 points — and senior guard Taryn Christian’s (nine points) moves up front, the Blue Devils rushed to an 18-6 lead. But as the Vikings began to make their presence known, shots stopped falling, passes weren’t as crisp and the Blue Devils’ intensity dropped.

Springbrook, though, held a 23-17 halftime lead and a 33-31 advantage heading into the fourth quarter. But Yockey’s two quick jumpers early in the quarter gave Whitman the lead, and the Vikings never trailed again.

‘‘We knew they’d figure it out,” Springbrook coach Oliver Riggs said. ‘‘It wasn’t really as much what they did as what we didn’t do. Not to take anything away from them. They hit all their shots when they needed them. They rebounded when they needed to. And they were first to the loose balls when they needed to be. I think they outhustled us. They outplayed us. And we missed too many shots.”

Thursday’s loss was a reality check for Springbrook.

‘‘The positive thing we can take away from today is that we must take every opponent the same way,” Riggs said. ‘‘We can’t take anyone lightly. We have to have the same intensity every day. I think at the end, when they were outhustling us, we didn’t have the same intensity we’ve had in the first five games.”

Thursday’s win was huge for Whitman. Not only did the Vikings upend one of the more highly touted girls squads in the county, they came back from seeming oblivion to do so. Knowing they have that capability will surely come in handy in the future.

‘‘Any time we’re down again, I’ll always be able to go into my coaching bag and say, ‘Remember Springbrook?’” Kenah said. ‘‘I’m extremely proud of these girls.”