The Hopkins girls’ varsity basketball team lost 48-35 Friday night to a Tri-Unity Christian squad that entered the contest with an 11-3 overall record.

Whether its was a good defensive night for the Lady Vikings or a bad offensive night for Tri-Unity was an open question. What wasn’t an open question is that Hopkins played with worst first quarter all season, scoring only two free throws and no baskets in the first eight minutes. It was down 8-2, and it was that close because the Defenders couldn’t do much either.

The Lady Vikings even dared to flirt with an upset, holding Tri-Unity to just five points in the second quarter and tying the score at 13-all at intermission.

Head coach Bryan Sinner (how’s that for irony in a name?) angrily called a timeout to regroup his beleaguered team early in the third period after the Vikings’ Keelan Kilbane took down a rebound and dribbled coast to coast and laid the ball in the net to give her team an astonishing 18-15 lead.

But that was the high point of the ballgame for Hopkins. Everything went downhill after that.

Seconds later Viking junior center Meghan Schulz, who had scored 26 points Tuesday against Belding, was whistled for her third foul in trying to stop 6-footer E’Lasia Craig, the Defenders’ best offensive weapon. Schulz sat out most of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth, and in her absence Craig and Tri-Unity took advantage.

Craig scored some key inside buckets and the Defenders began to pick up steals for easy transition layups. Meanwhile, Hopkins didn’t make a change on the scoreboard until the last minute of the quarter and trailed 28-22 to start the final eight minutes.

Enter Carrisa Reed, who doesn’t look much like a basketball player, but shoot free throws almost with the deadly accuracy of a Presley Hudson. She made nine of 10 attempts at the charity stripe, eight in a row down the stretch, to squash Hopkins’ hopes of coming back like a hedgehog in the road.

Reed and Craig both finished with 13 points and the Defenders improved to 12-3 overall. Schulz was well below her average with 11 points and Mikayla Bulich added nine.

Hopkins now is 5-11.

PHOTO: Lady Vikings’ leading scorer Meghan Schulz (with ball) found the going tough against 6-foot Defender E’Lasia Craig.

Heidi Gilder (20) scored two points on this running jumper against Tri-unity.