Photo by Samantha Davis. Minneota’s Sarah Gruenes drives past a defender and goes up for a layup in the first half against MACCRAY Friday evening at Minneota High School. Gruenes finished with three points and two rebounds in the Vikings’ 75-45 loss.

MINNEOTA — Offensive troubles pressured by a cohesive zone defense faulted the Minneota girls basketball team in a 75-45 loss to the MACCRAY Wolverines Friday evening, with the Vikings finishing with 25 turnovers.

“The biggest thing was, we didn’t quit. It’s very easy in a game like that to hang your heads, feel sorry for yourselves,” Minneota head coach Alan Panka said. “But, we kept fighting the whole way through. One of the timeouts, I wrote on the board, ‘Pride.’ I go, ‘This is where it comes down to’ … That’s the good thing to see.”

Jaylyn Coequyt had a team-high 12 points, eight rebounds and three blocks for Minneota in the loss. 10 of her points came in the first half.

MACCRAY played in a 2-3 zone defense the entire night, and forced Minneota into a 23-point halftime deficit. The Vikings struggled to find answers on both ends of the court, as the Wolverines also had efficient shooting to pair with its aggressive defense.

“We knew they ran that a lot, and we knew it was coming. It wasn’t like it was a surprise,” Panka said. “We didn’t pass well the first half to get good looks, or the timing of it was off, too. A little bit of both those things, and they seemed to not miss from the outside, so that didn’t help us either.”

Of the 25 turnovers, 18 came from steals. MACCRAY also had nine blocks and outrebounded Minneota 41-34.

The Vikings shot 23% from the field, and went 2 for 12 from the 3. The Wolverines had a 54% field goal percentage, and made 6 of 24 from the arc.

Kiersyn Hulzebos and Claire Rost each finished with 9 points. Eden Meagher tallied four steals on the night with her seven rebounds.

The Vikings have recently faced a string of tough competitors. Ahead of Friday, they dropped three of the last five games, but have been able to maintain their winning record throughout the season so far.

Two of the losses came from ranked opponents, to No. 7 Central Minnesota Christian and No. 5 Mayer Lutheran. The third loss came by the hands of an undefeated Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg team last Thursday by 7 points. Minneota most recently grabbed a win on Tuesday, 59-44, over Lac qui Parle Valley.

The game started competitively, and the two teams traded baskets the first few minutes until the Wolverines found their footing and gained its control. Once Minneota fell to its first double-digit deficit midway through the first half, it couldn’t find a way back within reach.

MACCRAY has had a strong first half season, now 13-4 overall, and won its last two games over Dawson-Boyd and Renville County West by 42 and 32 points respectively.

The Wolverines jumped into its zone defense from the tip, which served them well and flustered Minneota’s offense.

Both teams hit a midrange jumper and 3-pointer, starting the game 5-5. Coequyt got the first basket of the night, followed by Rost’s 3.

The two went on to be tied at 9, after Meagher found a cutting Coequyt cutting to the basket from the left elbow.

About halfway through the half is when the Vikings began to struggle offensively, and committed three consecutive turnovers from the zone defense. MACCRAY built a 15-9 lead when Panka called a timeout.

“That’s [turnovers] still a work in progress,” Panka said. “There’s obviously room for improvement there … Sometimes I think we get flustered, and we compound things. We make one mistake, which turns into a second mistake.”

The Wolverines were finding its steals by double-teaming at the wing, and grabbing the ball when Minneota would try to pass inside.

The Vikings tried to beat the zone by feeding the ball either inside to Sarah Gruenes who was stationed by the free throw line, or getting it to Coequyt cutting from the perimeter.

Minneota capitalized at some points but was more often challenged by the Wolverine defense as MACCRAY jumped out to a 21-11 lead.

The Wolverines’ Brielle Janssen and Emma Thein, who stand at 6-foot-1 and 6-foot respectively, offered the most defensive pressure by either using their height to hold an advantage in getting rebounds, or using their wingspan to collect a handful of Minneota blocks.

“The biggest thing that we talked about at halftime was, when you go in and you’re going up amongst the trees, you got to make a move, pump fake them in the air, that sort of thing,” Panka said. “You got to adjust and do something different, and we didn’t do that till the second half.”

Thein finished with 21 points, while Janssen had a game-high 31 points.

MACCRAY ventured on a 14-2 run to extend to a 29-11 lead, until Hulzebos sank a pair of free throws to end a Minneota scoring drought midway through the half.

Panka tried to play a few different rotations to find some spark, especially through the second half.

“It was, ‘Let’s, give some different people a different chance, and put them in different spots just to see what was going to happen,'” Panka said. “[Sophmore] Natalie DeCock has been playing really well in the B games lately, so I gave her some run at the end. Just tried to mix some different people in there.”

Minneota had a couple good defensive touches and steals, although it wasn’t at the pace of MACCRAY, or as frequently, to try and bridge the gap in the score.

The half came to an end after the Wolverines secured one last steal and offensive rebound to halt the Vikings from getting a possession, who went into the locker room with a 43-20 deficit.

MACCRAY opened the second half on a 16-9 run, jumping to a 59-29 advantage. Minneota got some offense going in the final minutes but wasn’t able to fully find a way to attempt a rally back. The Wolverines cruised their way through until the final buzzer.

“That’s the whole thing. You hope you learn from these good teams, these good games,” Panka said. “Hopefully, being battle tested and getting to the playoffs, that’s going to make a difference, and you’re going to probably see some of them again. Are you going to adjust and do things better the second time, or is it going to be more of the same?”

Minneota (11-7) has a quick turnaround and will hit the road today to Elkton, S.D., to face Arlington (7-4) at 7:15 p.m.