Vikings fall to HLOF in opener, 59-58

Despite only having a handful of practices due to the late football season, Minneota came within an eyelash of pulling out a win in the season opener.
Heron Lake-Okabena/Fulda, which has had a full practice schedule, hit a pair of free throws with five seconds remaining to edge the Vikings 59-58 on Saturday afternoon in Okabena.
“It was a good first game considering we played on only four practices and we hadn’t seen each other since Monday (due to inclement weather),” said first-year coach Chad Johnston, who moves over after 26 seasons as girls’ basketball coach.
The Vikings connected on 11 three-pointers in the game.
Max Rost and Ryan Dalager scored 15 points apiece to lead the Vikings (0-1). Dalager drained five 3-pointers and had seven rebounds and three assists. Rost sank three 3-pointers, to go along with seven assists and five rebounds.
“We were about as vanilla as a team could be,” said Johnston, referring to the limited practice time. “We scored with under 20 seconds left to take the lead by one point, but then we got called for a foul on their best player on the dribble up the court, and he hit two free throws to win the game.”
Anthony Rybinski had eight points, including five for six at the free-throw line, and had five assists and three rebounds. Peyton Sheik had eight points, 10 rebounds and two assists; Jack Lacek had two treys for six points; and Lucas Rybinski, Tate Peterson and Sawyer Desmet had two points apiece.
Complete statistics were not available.