Photo by Samantha Davis. Minneota’s Jaylyn Coequyt goes up for a shot against BOLD Thursday evening at Minneota High School. Coequyt finished with a game-high 23 points and six rebounds in the Vikings 75-52 loss, and move to 4-1 on the season.

MINNEOTA — Despite Jaylyn Coequyt’s team-high 23-points, the Minneota girls basketball team fell to BOLD 75-52 for its first loss of the season. The Vikings were faced with a full-court press that presented challenges, resulting in 31 Minneota turnovers.

“We definitely did not play our best tonight. We dug ourselves a big hole right away, and it just was tough to get out of,” Minneota head coach Alan Panka said. “We still fought, but it was too big of a mountain to climb.”

In addition to Coequyt, who also finished with a team-high six rebounds, Eden Meagher followed with 8 points and Kiersyn Hulzebos added 7 points, five rebounds with a team-high four assists.

Minneota had 31 turnovers to BOLD’s 16. Overall, the Vikings shot 40.7% from the field and 23.1% at the 3 going 3 for 13, while the Warriors held a 43.5% field percentage and shot 47.6% from the arc at 10 for 21.

The contest between the two was one-sided, as BOLD came out full-court pressing and carried it on through the first half, putting pressure on the Vikings who struggled to find a way through.

“We knew they were going to [press] on any makes or dead balls, but we had a couple turnovers that they turned into points, and then we just weren’t fluid,” Panka said. “We did break it a few times and got a couple layups and pulled it off. So, I mean if we were capable of doing that right away, then maybe that would have been a 6 or 8 point difference at the beginning.”

The Vikings eventually found some good looks by crashing the paint, but the Warriors’ 3-point shooting and points off turnovers were too much to handle.

“Kudos to them. They’re a good team, and they caused us to do some things that they wanted us to do,” Panka said. “But, we can do a better job of taking care of what we need to take care of.”

The Vikings entered Thursday coming off a 50-44 win over Lakeview on Tuesday to improve to 4-0, and off a 27-4 overall 2023 campaign with an appearance in the Section 3A championship.

Two of the Vikings’ four wins ahead of Thursday came by double-digits, defeating Tracy-Milroy-Balaton 60-41 and Yellow Medicine East 75-54 to begin the season.

BOLD also has found some rhythm this year so far, entering the night 4-2, after finishing last year 18-10 overall. Its four wins have been decided by 24 or more points, including a 45-point win over Yellow Medicine East 88-43 on Nov. 26.

Minneota and BOLD have not met since nearly a year ago on Dec. 14, in which the Vikings suffered a 45-44 loss.

“We knew this was going to be a good game, and that’s why you put teams like this on the schedule,” Panka said. “You want to play those [good] teams because if you get to where you want to at the end of a year, you’re going to be playing good teams, and you want that experience against quality teams.”

Minneota found its footing near the end of the first half after limiting some easy turnovers like travels and steals off longer passes, however BOLD continued to have efficient shooting and went on a few runs to head into the locker room up 48-30.

Coequyt got the action started with a jump shot off the left block with a feed from Hulzebos and went on to score Minneota’s first 6 points, all from the left side of the lane. She finished the night 11 for 17 from the field for a game-high 64.7% field goal percentage.

The Warriors immediately hit a 3-pointer after Coequyt’s opening basket, made another 3 on the next possession, and got a steal off its press for an open bucket to grab an 8-2 lead.

Sarah Gruenes and Coequyt stopped the run off a defensive board, and ran up on a 2-on-1 offense. Grunes dribbled up the right side of the court, and passed it to Coequyt closing in on the basket for an open layup.

But, the Warriors again hit a 3 from the right wing, and Panka called his first timeout with a 23-8 trail.

Shortly out of the reset, Hulzebos made a 3-pointer to try to spark some Vikings momentum.

Lilly Henriksen and Layla Pfarr both had double digits by the half, and were running BOLD’s offense primarily.

Coequyt ended the half by forcing a Warriors travel on defense, and got the basketball in transition in the middle of the lane for the field goal. She ended the half leading the team with 12 points.

“I basically told them we’re down 18 and half. There’s 18 minutes left. You have to try to make up a point a minute,” Panka said regarding his message to the team at the break. “You’re not going to have your A-game every night. We’ve got to do a little bit better job of cleaning up some of the things we can take care of.”

Minneota came into the second half with more momentum. Coequyt scored a pair of baskets, and Meagher grabbed a steal and ran down the court alone for an easy right-handed layup.

The Warriors however, halted the Vikings from getting any closer with transition baskets of its own.

Coequyt spent the night stationed at the elbows to receive the ball to lay it in or draw the foul. Primarily in the second half, she began to get double- or triple-teamed to add more pressure to the center.

Turnovers challenged Minneota, between ball handling errors, steals and passes out of bounds. The remainder of the game remained in BOLD’s favor.

“That’s [turnovers] been our problem all year to this point,” Panka said. “We got to keep cleaning up, and find ways to put people in better positions to be successful instead of turning it over.”

Minneota, 4-1, will hit the road for a bit and travel to take on Redwood Valley on Tuesday at 7:15 p.m. The Vikings return home on Jan. 9 to host Central Minnesota Christian at 7:30 p.m.

“It’s going to be a lot of good teams, and that’s okay,” Panka said about going on the road. “We need to play good teams. It doesn’t do you much good to play a team that you’re going to beat handily. You’d rather face that good competition and go that route.”