The Hopkins girls’ varsity basketball team absorbed its third loss in as many tries this season Friday evening with a 34-25 loss to Hamilton.

The Vikings astonishingly held the visiting opponents scoreless in the entire third quarter and crept to within four points, 23-19, before the Hawkeyes were able to pull away in the last eight minutes with an 11-6 run.

Hopkins had a terrible time bringing the ball up the floor in the first half, turning it over on the 10-second rule in the first two attempts and tossing passes that were picked off on others.

The Vikings actually held a slim 12-11 lead at the 6:23 mark of the second quarter on a free throw by junior center Meghan Schulz, but Hamilton scored the next dozen points in a row. Guard Joslyn Bronkhorst swished a couple of threes to key the run.

Hopkins finally scored on a free throw by junior forward Mikayla Bulich with 48 second left until intermission. At that point, Bulich had scored seven points and Schulz six to account for all of the Vikings’ scoring.

Bulich and Schulz both finished with 10 points. Bronkhorst led all scorers will 11.