Though Calvin Christian entered Friday night’s girls’ basketball contest at Hopkins with just a 4-5 record, it still is considered to be the team to beat in the O-K Silver Conference this season.

The Squires lost a lot of talent from last year to graduation, but their best two ballplayers are a freshman point guard and a 6-foot sophomore center. And that was enough to subdue the host Vikings, 54-36.

After a really sluggish offensive performance by both squads in the first quarter, the visiting quintet used a 9-0 scoring run to jump out to a 14-4 advantage, sparked by a steal and layup and a three-point bomb by freshman guard Sadie Knee. Another three by Marissa VanDenBerg and some inside baskets and rebounding by sophomore Lily Kuiper enabled the Squires to take a 19-12 lead at the half.

Knee really upped the ante in the first two minutes of the third quarter with four points to push Calvin Christian to a 23-12 and the Vikings struggled the rest of the way to whittle the gap to less than double figures. Knee nailed a couple more threes to give her teammates a 38-20 advantage late in the third period.

About all Hopkins could muster offensively was the rebounding of Meghan Schulz and some nifty inside work from Bailey Ballard. But Schulz drew her fourth foul and had to sit out too much of the fourth quarter.

Ballard paced the Vikings’ offensive attack with 15 points and Schulz had 11. Knee led all scorers with 17 points and Kuiper chipped in 10.

The loss dropped the Hopkins overall season record to 3-5.

PHOTO: Taryn Kilbane (24) tries to get around Calvin Christian’s Sadie Knee (14).