Just when the H
opkins basketball team starts to get its act together, the season ends.
The Vikings lost 77-51 to South Haven in the Class B district finals Friday night in a game that was reasonably close for the first three quarters. The Rams, now 19-3 on the season overall, threw Hopkins a curve ball it didn’t handle well in the fourth quarter — a delay offense that resulted in the Vikings scoring just two points in the last eight minutes.
Hopkins got off to a horrible start in the 2015-16 season, losing its first seven ballgames and was 3-14 before showing signs of life. Coach Darrin Smith noticed it in his team’s loss to Kelloggsville in the O-K Silver Conference finale. Then the Vikings won three consecutive games, over Maple Valley and Plainwell and Allegan in the first two rounds in the tourney.
So they entered the championship game as the “Cinderella” team, but didn’t turn into a pumpkin until that fateful fourth period.
With about 6:15 left in the contest, South Haven coach Larry Ash implemented his delay offense, not a stall nor four corners, but a system in which his players just pass the ball around and look for openings for easy shots. The Rams executed the plan so well that Hopkins was limited to only a short pull-up jumper by Justin Weick for the entire quarter. They turned a 60-49 score at the end of three into a 17-2 run in the fourth period.
South Haven was all about brief scoring outbursts. The two teams were knotted at 13-all with just over two minutes left in the opening quarter when the Rams went on a 9-0 tear on a three by Spencer Adams and three fast break baskets off turnovers.
Jake Sapp, turning in perhaps his finest performance in his last game as a Viking, nailed a three to cut the margin to 22-16.
The Vikings were guilty of just enough turnovers that South Haven turned into easy baskets and it began to pull away, increasing the gap to double figures.
Meanwhile, 6-3 senior center Armani May was scoring heaving, picking up all of his 13 points in the first half. Sapp at the same time had 14 points for Hopkins, but he and his teammates were on the wrong side of a 43-30 score at intermission.
Behind some heady play by junior guard Curtis Opatic, the Vikings dared to creep to within six points, 45-39, in the first two minutes of the second half. Opatic was taking the ball to the iron, and when he wasn’t scoring the layup he was getting fouled and then making free throws.
But the Rams responded with another run — literally, taking the ball to the hoop quickly with three straight layups and then a three by Jerome Mahone to mount a 54-39 advantage. Though they managed to cut the deficit to 11 at the end of the third period, the Vikings never made it close after that.
Sapp scored 21 points, gathered a good number of rebounds and came up with three blocks. Opatic finished with 15 points and Weick chipped in eight.
South Haven was blessed with balanced scoring. Adams had 14, Joe Wilkins came off the bench to add a dozen, as did DeShaan Palmer, and Mahone had 10, all in addition to May’s 13.
Hopkins finished its season with a late-season surge that resulted in a final record of 6-16 overall and a trip to the district finals.
PHOTOS: Curtis Opatic (10) on the drive.
Jake Sapp (21).
