COVID absences impact Vikings’ season

By Mike Zummo
Posted 1/19/22

The Valley Central boys’ basketball team reached the lowest point of their season when they lost to the Pine Bush Bushmen on Jan. 11.

They didn’t get a win two days later, but they put …

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COVID absences impact Vikings’ season

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The Valley Central boys’ basketball team reached the lowest point of their season when they lost to the Pine Bush Bushmen on Jan. 11.

They didn’t get a win two days later, but they put forth a better performance in a mixed-and-matched lineup in a 77-50 non-league loss to the Goshen Gladiators on Thursday night.

“I thought we responded pretty well,” Valley Central coach Frank Nutt said. “We had a rough game Tuesday.

Our overall intensity and just our desire to play basketball was super low. We’ve had a couple of COVID-related absences and we’ve had some classrooms struggles with some of our guys, so they’ve had to pull away from the team.”

It’s caused the Vikings to go deep not only into their bench but also into their program to fill spots on the varsity team. Armando Perez and Donovan Davis both came up from the junior varsity, while Kai Hei wasn’t even on the either the varsity or junior varsity roster at the beginning of the season.

Both Perez and Hei saw time early in the game.

“I thought with what we had, we played hard, and I thought we responded well to playing our low on Tuesday, home against Pine Bush,” Nutt said.

It’s been a struggle as the constant lineup changes has made it, compounded by the early season loss of Raysean Johnson to a shoulder injury has made it difficult for the Vikings to get into a flow.

“It’s tough, but everyone’s doing the same thing, so it’s no excuse for us,” Nutt said. “Guys are given the opportunity and they’ve got to take advantage of the opportunity. I think, tonight, it shows.”

It showed even though the Vikings struggled out of the box as the Gladiators jumped out to an early 24-8 lead. By halftime, the Vikings had cut the lead to 14 points at halftime, and to 12 points when Jerrell Taylor hit a jump shot 12 seconds into the third quarter.

Taylor led the Vikings with a game-high 21 points.

“I was proud because you get punched in the face like that early on, it’s easy – especially after what happened Tuesday – to kind of shut the door and pack it in,” Nutt said. “But we didn’t, and we fought through it. They played really well tonight. Hats off to them. We just have to keep growing and taking advantage of opportunities.”

In the end, the Gladiators were too much inside for the Vikings. Even after Goshen’s center, Luke Michalski left the game with an ankle injury early in the third quarter, they still had trouble getting around Tyler Kropp and Justin Hannibal. Michalski dominated on the inside before the injury.

Michalski scored 13 points to lead the Gladiators alongside D.J. Brown. Hannibal and Devineo Innis Leach scored 12 each and Jadan Rutling scored 10.

Even with the game out of reach, the youngest Vikings finished with an 11-2 run to end the game.

“Every single one of those guys on the floor has not played more than five varsity minutes before tonight,” Nutt said. “For those guys it’s really just understanding the speed and physicality of the varsity level and taking advantage of those minutes and understanding what they need to do to be successful, I think it’s hard to teach that. It’s something they have to experience, and they were able to do it and I thought they played well in the last two minutes.”