Suffering their first SEK League game of the season, the Parsons Vikings boys fell to the Coffeyville Golden Tornado, 60-52, on Thursday night at home.
“There wasn’t a separating point,” Parsons head coach Anthony Houk said. “We were just one step behind them for 80% of the game. Give Coffeyville credit. They played great and they were in double digits all four quarters. They got to the line 21 times and we went there 14 times.”
Coffeyville shot 49% to Parsons’ 41% on Thursday night. Dontae Sawyer led the Vikings with 16 points while Carter Herring paced the Golden Tornado with a dozen.
“We learned that if we don’t lock in and execute the details, that’ll be the difference in the league champion,” Houk said. “I don’t think we’ll have a league champion that’s undefeated. So it’ll come down to our team showing maturity and hammering details going forward.”
The loss snapped a threegame winning streak for Parsons dating back to Dec. 17 against Fort Scott. Parsons entered the night as one of two teams left unbeaten in league play — Chanute took sole possession of first place with the Vikings’ loss.
“I asked our guys to keep our eyes forward,” Houk said. “We can’t dwell on this. We can’t let this game set us back. If we learn from this, awesome. I hate losing. But if a team is going to beat you, it’s best to understand why. We’re going to look for our guys to step up.”
Parsons is now 5-3 overall and 3-1 in SEK League action.
Up next
Parsons started the Lancer Classic at Southeast High School in Cherokee on Monday.
“When you play in tournaments like these, you want to play in the last game on Saturday,” Houk said. “We know we’ve got to take care of Commerce and hopefully we’re playing the late game on Thursday and Saturday. We’re going to get everybody’s best shot.”
