Siuslaw Vikings boys basketball coach Dylan Perry is stoked.

His Vikings are off to a 2-0 start, and showing indications of a very special season, the pandemic be damned.

Friday, the Vikings have a rematch at North Bend. Below are his thoughts on the first two games of the season.

vs. Pleasant Hill

We were all so very thankful to get the opportunity to play basketball 

again.  I didn't think this moment was going to happen for us this year 

for quite some time until the restrictions were changed shortly before 

our scheduled season.

We are treating every practice and every game as though it might be our 

last.  What Covid has taught us is that you never know when things will 

be taken away from you unexpectedly.  Cherish every moment that you get 

on the court with your teammates.

Pleasant Hill was a very talented team that are going to cause some 

difficulties for every team that they play this year.  Our press put 

them on their heels and we were able to play our style of uptempo to 

establish a strong half-time lead.

In the second half, we started making mental mistakes that allowed 

P-Hill to get back in to the game.  We were making silly fouls that 

would result in them getting to the free throw line early in the second 

half and scoring points without making them work for them as we had in 

the first half against our set defense.  We need to do a better job of 

playing aggressively without fouling, that is a big emphasis for us this 

season.   We also committed too many live ball turnovers that led to 

P-Hill getting steals and break away layups.  We need to protect the 

ball and make our opponents score against a set defense.

The end of regulation was a wild one, and probably one of the weirdest 

basketball situations I've been in.  The call being reversed, and then 

reversed again to send us to overtime.  The referee knew he made a 

mistake, but they had to live with the call that was made, so we played 

an extra 4 minutes.  (Watching game film, it was clearly a 2 point shot 

and the game should have been over).

This is a game that we may have lost last year with a younger team, but 

all of our players have been in these crunch time situations now so we 

were able to deal with the pressure and execute in overtime to secure 

the win.  It wasn't a perfect game by any means but we will take a Win 

anytime we can get it.  A win is a win!

vs. North Bend

We were excited to get back out on the court the next day after a very 

closely fought overtime win the night before.  We had communicated about 

what we needed to do better this game to put together a full game.  We 

continued with our full court pressure and it caused North Bend some 

problems.  We kept the pressure on throughout the entire first half 

creating a 38-12 lead at half time.

We didn't execute defensively as cleanly as we should have been to start 

the third quarter which gave North Bend the chance to make a little run 

of their own.  We took a timeout and communicated what we needed to 

correct in order to retake the momentum and put the game away.

We didn't press in the second half with a sizable lead but our 1/2 court 

defensive pressure was as tough as ever.  All 13 players got playing 

time last night and contributed to the win.  It is a lot of fun when 

everyone on the team is being involved on the court and the energy of 

the team is high.  It was really great seeing all of our young men smile 

and enjoy the hard work they've put in and to see it paying off.

North Bend will certainly make some adjustments at practice today, and 

we will need to be prepared for a battle on Friday when we travel to 

their home court for the rematch.  We look forward to the challenge.

Go Viks!