Vikings defeat Cardinals 61-52 at Classic

Bloomfield's Andy Cochrane drives through the West Vigo defense during the first half of the Cardinals game at the Pizza Hut Wabash Valley Classic Friday night. (By Travis David/Greene County Daily World). [Order this photo]

TERRE HAUTE -- For the second straight game, the Bloomfield boy's basketball team suffered slow a sluggish first eight minutes of play and tried to play catch up the rest of the way. After falling behind to Class 3A West Vigo, 25-8 in the first round of the Pizza Hut Wabash Valley Classic, the Cards were dropped to the losers bracket after their 61-52 loss to the Vikings.

"We just came out a little sluggish once again and you can not do that against the competition of this caliber here," Cardinals coach Ron McBride said.

Jordan Pearson connected on three of his game-high four shots from behind the arc during the first eight minutes of play. The senior guard's first trey of the game with five minutes and 13 seconds left gave the Vikings a 6-5 lead as they never looked back.

"We knew that he was more than capable of hitting that set shot," McBride said of Pearson. "If he gets one open look that is one thing but to give him three, four or five, that is just horrible defense on our part."

Pearson was not the only hot hand for the Vikings early on, as a team West Vigo connected on 9 of 11 first quarter shots from the field in their 17 point first quarter lead.

"They (West Vigo) did an excellent job of running their offensive game plan tonight," McBride said. "They are very well coached and they executed everything to perfection."

The first quarter domination by the Vikings must have waked the Cardinals up, as they would go on to outscore the Vikings the rest of the way. But the first quarter hole proved to be too deep to climb out of.

"That's why you have to play four quarters," McBride said. "You can't let up one quarter against a team like West Vigo. We just did not take the court ready to play tonight."

The Cards would outscore the Vikings by eight points over the middle two quarters as they cut the deficit to just nine points heading into the final eight minutes of play. But the Greene County team could not connect on critical shots when they needed them most to get all the way back in the game.

"I thought we played a lot harder in the second half," the Cards head man said. "We just couldn't knock down some shots there when we had the lead trimmed down to eight to get over the hump.

Andy Cochrane, who led the Cardinals with 17 points to go along with four boards and one steal, connected on a trey from the right corner with 1:33 left in the game to pull the Cardinals within 55-47. After a time-out by McBride, the full court press of the Cardinals forced the Vikings into a turnover, but was unable to capitalize to draw any closer.

"We kind of forced a shot up there after that turnover then they go down and make an old-fashioned 3-point play," McBride said of the missed opportunity. "That was potentially a six-point swing, where we could have cut the lead to five points but instead are now down back by 11 points. It could have changed the outcome in the game."

Free throws were also a problem for the Cardinals, as they misfired on 8 of 14 attempts from the charity stripe.

"We just got outplayed by a very good team on every phase of the game tonight," McBride said "We just need to learn to come out with more intensity to start the game.

"You would think playing in a high profile tournament like this and in this atmosphere the kids would be chomping at the bit to play in these game. Hopefully we can carry the way we finished this game over into tomorrow."

Rick Tally was the only other Cardinal to reach double figures in scoring, with 10 points and led BHS with five rebounds and two steals.

Gavin Thompson and Kurt Schulte each posted nine points in the loss, while Mitch Hobson drained two 3-pointers for his only points and Chris Babcock made good on one free-throw to round out the scoring.

Tyler Wampler led all scorers with 22 points including 14 in the final eight minutes of play. Pearson added 20 points and Jeremy Lucas was the third Viking in double digits with 11 points and led the team with nine boards.

The Cardinals will resume tournament play at 4 p.m. Saturday when they square off against South Vermillion. The Wildcats fell to heavy tournament favorite Terre Haute South, 69-31.

WEST VIGO (61) -- Tyler Wampler 7-10 7-10 22, Jordan Houser 0-0 0-0 0, Jordan Pearson 7-14 2-2 20, Scott West 1-2 0-0 2, Brodey McCalister 0-0 0-0 0, Cody Thornton 2-3 0-0 6, Jeremy Lucas 5-7 0-4 11, Lucas Mackey 0-0 0-0 0, Ryan Crowther 0-0 0-0 0, Joel Modesit 0-0 0-0 0, Sean Burton 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 22-38 9-16 61.

BLOOMFIELD (52) -- Mitch Hobson 2-3 0-0 6, Graham Helms 0-3 0-0 0, Jordan Arford 0-2 0-0 0, Rick Tally 4-6 2-3 10, Andy Cochrane 7-14 0-2 17, Chris Babcock 0-0 1-2 1, Gavin Thompson 4-8 0-0 9, Kurt Schulte 3-7 3-7 9. Totals 20-44 6-14 52.

West Vigo 25 9 8 19 -- 61

Bloomfield 8 11 14 19 -- 52

3-pointers -- West Vigo 8 (Pearson 4, Thornton 2, Lucas, Wampler), Bloomfield 6 (Cochrane 3, Hobson 2, Thompson). Rebounds -- West Vigo 27 (Lucas 9), Bloomfield 19 (Tally 5). Steals -- West Vigo 8 (Wampler 3), Bloomfield 7 (Tally 2). Turnovers -- West Vigo 15, Bloomfield 11. Fouls -- West Vigo 10, Bloomfield 15. Fouled out -- none.