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FERRIDAY — The Vidalia High School Vikings got off to as bad of a start as they possibly could against their Concordia Parish rivals the Ferriday High School Trojans last Tuesday night.

In what was the first of two non-district games against LHSAA District 2-2A competition this week, the Vidalia Vikings came up short in their late-game comeback attempt and fell to the Ferriday Trojans 61-56.

Vidalia head coach Damus Smith said the first quarter is what hurt the Vikings as they couldn’t do anything right on either end of the court. Vidalia scored just two points in the opening quarter and trailed Ferriday 20-2 at the end of the quarter.

“We just got a bad start. We came out sluggish,” Smith said. “We were missing shots. Turning the ball over. The turnovers were just unforced errors. We were just completely out of sync.”

And while Smith said his team started to play better offensively in the second quarter, the Trojans still outscored the Vikings 16-14 to go into halftime up 36-16. The home team continued to add to their lead in the third quarter as Ferriday put up 15 points to Vidalia’s 12 points for what should have been a commanding 51-28 advantage.

“We didn’t really get going until the second half,” Smith said. More specifically the fourth quarter.

That’s when the Vikings’ defense forced the Trojans into several turnovers and that allowed the visitors to make a furious comeback. However, Ferriday did just enough offensively to thwart that attempted rally despite being outscored 28-10 in the fourth quarter.

Paul Swanson led Ferriday with a game-high 22 points and Milligan (no first name given) added 12 points. The Trojans (11-5) don’t play again until Tuesday, Jan. 17 when they play at Vidalia to open up district play for both teams.

Kabari Davis led Vidalia with 17 points while Christopher Brooks poured in 15 points and Elmari Lewis chipped in with 10 points. The Vikings (7-8) played host to Tensas High School at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in a make-up game before hosting Mangham High School in another non-district match-up at 7:30 p.m. Friday.

In the varsity girls’ game, the Ferriday Lady Trojans defeated the Vidalia Lady Vikings. No other information on that game was available.

Ferriday next plays at Vidalia in both teams’ District 2-2A opener at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 17. The Lady Vikings hosted Tensas High School at 6 p.m. Wednesday and then play host to Mangham High School at 6 p.m. Friday.