Vikings Battle Tough Competition at Peninsula Crossover Tournament

The Big Bend Vikings Men's Basketball team traveled to the Peninsula Crossover Tournament this past weekend, facing a slate of tough opponents. Despite flashes of brilliance, BBCC finished the weekend with one win and two close losses.

In the opening game against the host, Peninsula College, the Vikings fought through a back-and-forth contest. BBCC trailed by seven points at the half but displayed resilience, clawing their way back to tie the game as the clock expired. However, Peninsula edged out BBCC in overtime, 63-58. Gideon Harris delivered a standout performance, scoring 27 points on an efficient 11-of-17 shooting. Unfortunately, no other Viking managed to crack double digits in the hard-fought loss.

BBCC bounced back in dominant fashion in Game 2 against Pierce College. The Vikings came out firing, building a 16-point lead by halftime and maintaining their momentum en route to a convincing 78-55 victory. Victor Raymond paced the Vikings with 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting, while Gil Gonzalez added 15 points, shooting an impressive 6-of-7 from the field.

In the final matchup of the weekend, the Vikings squared off against Lane Community College in another tight contest. Despite a strong effort, BBCC fell short, 72-66. Gil Gonzalez exploded for 29 points on 12-of-18 shooting, while Harris contributed 13 points. Free-throw struggles proved costly for BBCC, as the Vikings shot just 36% from the line, a factor that ultimately tilted the game in Lane's favor. Head Coach Jason Hopkins had this to say regarding the weekend.

"I thought we competed really hard all weekend. In the first game we had some extraordinary bad luck. We really defended well and didn't allow them to score the whole game, Gideon Harris really came to play and finished with 27 points (although it should have been 29). The game was tied at 55 points with 10.4 seconds left on the clock. He waited until the clock wound down and released the ball with 1.7 seconds left and it was nothing but nylon. It should have been a game winner but was waived off because the officials said that because of a series of clock errors by Peninsula the shot was nullified. I thought it was really hard for our guys to go through a second game they should have won but instead lost because of factors outside of their control. We also had an uncharacteristically bad shooting night, just couldn't connect from deep. In the next two games we would make 10 and 8 threes but only made 1 in this game despite getting really good looks.

 We rallied back and really played well against a Pierce team that beat us last year. A lot of people played well but Victor Raymond really shined and defensively we were really good. Victor finished with 17 points on perfect shooting from three, to get our first double digit NWAC win since I've been here.

 In the final game against a really good Lane we really defended well and played efficient offensively. Lane came in averaging over 95 points per game and we held then to 72 on 38% shooting. I was really proud of how we competed with a team who hasn't even had a single digit game against NWAC competition and it was a possession game at the end where if we make a couple shots we may just come out on top. Gil Gonzalez was a monster offensively with 29 points and hit three threes and Gideon Harris was again strong offensively. Dominik Wojna was also really good, getting 13 rebounds."

With conference play right around the corner, BBCC faces off versus Elite Sports Academy for one last preseason game.