The Hopkins boys’ varsity basketball team’s offense did its best “Sleeping Beauty” performance for three quarters of a game Friday night.

The Vikings came to life in the final eight minutes, but unlike the happy ending in the Tchaikovsky ballet, it was too late to overtake visiting Hamilton in a 51-44 nonleague loss.

Though it was a much better ballgame than the 57-35 pasting it got from the Hawkeyes a year ago, Hopkins’ inability to find the hoop was a costly problem. Nobody on the team was able to make a three-pointer until that last stanza and even two-pointers were difficult.

Actually, the two squads battled pretty evenly in the first two periods. The Vikings were able to stay close because of a tenacious zone defense and neither team took more than a two-point lead until Hamilton point guard Kaleb Moore, the smallest guy on the floor, nailed a three with about 2:30 left in the half to stake his team to a 17-14 lead. Teammate Jacob Visscher followed with another trey and the visiting quintet as a result went to the locker room with a 20-16 advantage.

But just as the Hopkins defense made it competitive, its anemic offense proved to be fatal, particularly in the third quarter. Sophomore Nolan Smith scored on a weak-side rebound putback, but that was the home team’s only basket for an agonizing five-minute stretch before Justin Weick swished a couple of free throws.

Meanwhile, the Hawkeyes were pulling away with Moore scoring from the outside and Tyler Eding doing the damage inside.

The Vikings found themselves down by 11 points, 33-22 at the start of the fourth period and things got even worse a couple of minutes later when they were on the short end of a 47-31 count.

Then came some strange occurrences, in which Hopkins made things interesting while being virtually desperate, almost like Detroit Lions QB Matt Stafford in the last period.

Coach Darrin Smith turned up the full-court pressure and a virtual unknown, senior forward Brandon DeGroot, came off the bench to live large and fast in less than eight minutes.

It was DeGroot who scored Hopkins’ first three-pointer, about halfway into the fourth quarter. He then nailed a long two, sank a pair of free throws and laid in a putback. He had nine points in his brief stint, but also five fouls.

The Vikings went to an all-out pressing defense and picked up steals on the in-bounds pass. They tallied 10 straight unanswered points. Hunter Lewellyn nailed a three with 14.5 seconds left to make it 49-44, but Moore finished off the evening with a pair of free throws.

Hopkins scored as many points in the fourth quarter as it did in the other three combined.

Some may have wondered why Hopkins didn’t bring on the full-court press earlier, but Hamilton gave no indication it had any trouble against a press at any time earlier in the game. It was like the old conventional wisdom that a press only works when it has to.

Lewellyn led Hopkins 11 points. Curtis Optaic had 10, eight of them in the first half, and DeGroot had those weird nine points and five fouls in less than a quarter.

Moore led all scorers with 19 points, Tyler Eding had 12 and Brady Eding eight.

PHOTO: Curtis Opatic scored 10 points for the Vikings.