The Hopkins girls’ varsity basketball team Friday evening scored its third straight victory to creep to within one game of .500 after a terrible start to the season.

The Lady Vikings defeated Wyoming Godwin Heights to lift their season record to 4-5. They led 35-16 at intermission.

Meanwhile, the Martin girls’ squad continues to fall on hard times. The Lady Clippers, who at the holiday break were 5-1 overall, absorbed their fourth straight defeat after leading scorer Gracie Shettler went down with an injury. This time they fell 48-22 to Watervliet.

Fate was even more unkind to the Martin boys’ team that lost 60-14 to Watervliet.

Lady Clippers’ coach Ben Schipper commented, “We had a great first 14 minutes against an undefeated Watervliet team tonight. We were very pleased with how we played during that stretch. Things went sideways for us the last two minutes of the first half and Watervliet never looked back.”

Indeed, Martin trailed only 8-6 at the end of the first quarter and still was in the ballgame at the half, 24-16. Watervliet star Sam Dietz started to put everything together late in the second quarter. Martin held her to just 2 points in the first period, then she scored at least 6 in every quarter for a game high 22 points.

“Lack of discipline was the story for us tonight,” Schipper said. “When we were diligent with our attention to detail, we were successful. When we lost track of doing things the right way, Watervliet capitalized. We played hard and gave a heck of an effort, but we have to play the game well too in order to win. We’ll get there in due time. It’s just a matter of putting it all together against these tough teams.” 

The coach noted Shettler came back into the lineup after her ankle injury, but she was limited to just one basket.

“Linsey Jager battled Dietz all night long and Avery Jager had some great aggressive moments tonight as well as several blocks. I was also very pleased with Maddy Bogdan’s scoring mentality as she led our team with 10 points.”

The Wayland girls got back on the winning track after two straight losses to O-K Gold Conference leaders South Christian and Grand Rapids Catholic Central. They pulled out a 48-41 victory over Cedar Springs to run their overall record to 6-4, 3-2 in the league.

The Wayland boys, however, lost to Cedar 72-62 and saw their overall record slip to 2-7.