Vikings tune out 'Rockers

By Padraic Duffy, Journal staff Saturday, January 12, 2008

RAPID CITY — The Valley City State Vikings jumped out to a quick 13-1 lead on South Dakota Mines and were never really threatened after that as they cruised to a 69-52 Dakota Athletic Conference victory at Goodell Gymnasium on Friday night.

“That was a really important point that we talked about before the game,” Valley City head coach Jeff Kaminsky said. “We haven’t always been getting off to the best starts here and they’re a dangerous, scrappy team.”

The danger was less than anticipated for the visitors, though as Mines struggled throughout the game. The Hardrockers shot just 18-for-48 (37.5 percent) from the floor and committed 23 turnovers to just 13 assists. The lack of vision was something that Mines head coach Jason Henry saw as a big factor in the game.

“That’s part of what Valley does,” Henry said. “They get you playing a little faster than you want to and we ended up getting a little tunnel vision. We did a good job of beating the first guy off the dribble, but then when the help (defense) came we didn’t do a very good job of finding the open man.”

While the Hardrockers were struggling to come up with much in the way of easy offense, the Vikings were finding the shots that they wanted for the most part. Two freshmen, Tyler Macomber and Calvin Kraft, led Valley City State with 15 and 14 points, respectively. Junior Mike Stowman added 12. Kraft and Stowman combined to hit five of Valley’s six 3-pointers, while Macomber went 6-for-8 from the floor, all in the lane.

“Stowman and Kraft are both good shooters and we knew that coming in,” Henry said. “We talked about how they’ve got some really good drivers and that we needed to play them for the drive and then we got out there and played them like shooters. Then when we got on their hip they found their shooters and made us pay for it.”

Things won’t get any easier as the Hardrockers (4-13 overall and 1-1 in the DAC) will play Jamestown College in a game today at 6 p.m.

“They’ve got probably the best player in the conference,” Henry said of Jamestown’s Kyle Iverson.

“And they’ve got size and shooters, too. We’re going to have to play a lot harder and smarter.”

Brent Cass paced Mines with 14 points and Michael Ross was the only other player in double figures with 10 points. Donny DeGooyer came off the bench to score eight points and grab a game-high seven rebounds for the Hardrockers. The Mines starting five of Ross, Cass, Robbie Fedor, Kaleb Rehmer and Scott May had six assists to 15 turnovers on the night, perfectly illustrating the problems they had on offense.