Photo by Chris Drummond Vikings forward Ireland Stassen (30) shooting a floater in the lane against the Yellow Medicine East Sting in Monday night’s 82-56 win in Minneota

MINNEOTA –The Minneota Vikings girls’ basketball team defeated the Yellow Medicine East Sting 82-56 on Monday night. It was the opening game of the season for the Vikings and Al Panka’s first win as Minneota’s head coach.

In the opening half, forwards Kenadi Arndt and Ireland Stassen paced the Vikings in scoring. They combined for 23 of the team’s 39 first-half points. Arndt had 14 and Stassen had 9.

Turnovers doomed the Sting in the first half, creating multiple easy transition baskets for the Vikings.

With 7:11 remaining in the half, YME’s Bayli Sneller sustained an ankle injury that forced her out of the game. She was unable to return.

Hannah Stark led the Sting team in scoring in the first half with 9 points and teammate Ruby Bones had 8.

In the second half, it was more of the same for the Vikings. The Vikings had 16 steals in the contest. Arndt finished with a team-high 23 points in the game.

“I thought we played really good offense,” Arndt said. “I thought we ran the floor well and our passing was really smooth.”

Stassen finished the game with a double-double, scoring 17 points and distributing 10 assists.

“I think we knew coming into this year with a new coach, new team, graduated a lot of team members last year and losing four out of five starters it was going to be a challenge to start,” Stassen said. “That was a great game to start the season off with. We all played really well and spread the ball around. If I drive and I see an open girl I’ll give it to her. I’d much rather have the assist than score.”

Bones had a monster game, finishing with 23 points and 17 rebounds, both game-highs. Her teammates Hannah Stark finished with 18 points and five rebounds in the losing effort.

“We came out nervous going against the state’s runner-up last year in Minneota,” Sting head coach Ryan Schultz said.“We just committed too many turnovers tonight. We have some young kids playing so we’re going to go through those growing pains. It is early in the season and all of these things are fixable, correctable. The girls played really hard tonight.”

If there was one thing to talk about negatively on the Vikings’ victory tonight, it was their transition defense. The Sting were able to quickly get in transition and beat the Vikings’ defense down the court for easy baskets.

“I told the team after the game, putting up 82 points, I’m happy with that,” Panka said. “However, we absolutely cannot be giving fast break buckets like we did. I told them if you want to be a transition team, you have to be a transition defense too. Our communication in transition needs to get better and it is something we will work on.”

The Minneota Vikings (1-0) will host the Lakeview Lakers on Friday evening and the Yellow Medicine East Sting (1-2) will travel to Tyler to faceoff against the Russell-Tyler Ruthton Knights on Thursday evening.