Tower-Soudan reclaimed the Lake Vermilion Trophy, defeating the Little Gophers 52-44 at Cook on Friday.

“We started out slow,” said the Golden Eagles Co-Head Coach Joe Krtininch, whose team led 23-20 at the half. “But we stuck with what we were going with in the second half and were able to take advantage of turnovers by Cook.”

It was a different finish from last year’s battle for the Lake Vermilion Trophy, which Cook won in the closing seconds with its last basket. After falling deep behind in the second half, the Gophers seemed on the verge of a comeback after a pair of treys by Adam Bamberg closed the gap to five points.

Cook Coach Will Kleppe called a timeout with about six minutes left to play, but the Gophers surrendered the ball when they attempted to pass it inbounds. That resulted in a three-pointer for T-S and the Gophers were never able to get any closer for the rest of the game.

“Even as poorly as we played, I thought we had a chance,” said Kleppe. “The game was up for grabs, but we’re just not comfortable stepping up when we need to.”

Kleppe said it was a familiar story for his team, which kept pace with the Eagles in the first half but fell apart in the second half. During a 12-minute stretch, the Gophers managed to score only four points.

Both teams struggled to find the basket in the opening half. Cook’s defense effectively neutralized the Eagles’ top scoring threat Chris Suihkonen in the first half, but senior guard Travis Benck stepped up to fill the void. Benck sank back-to-back treys and scored the Eagles’ first eight points of the game.

Krtininch credited his team’s defensive play for keeping T-S ahead in the game. “We usually have more offense production than we did on Friday,” he said. “But our defense carried us through.”

Suihkonen and Benck led the Eagles offensively with 18 and 17 points, respectively. Paxton Goodsky added nine, including a pair of treys, while Jacob Quick contributed six.

The Gophers were led by Bamberg with 12. Dan Peillinen, Matt Bergman and Zach Linn each added six while Adam Wooster and Mason Wilhelmy dumped in five apiece.

The Eagles, who improved to 10-8 with the win, made eight of 17 free-throw attempts. Cook, which fell to 3-15, hit four of seven from the charity stripe.

Taking home the trophy was enough incentive to fire up his team, said Krtininch. “They go ga-ga over that trophy and they definitely wanted it back after last year. It was more than just another game for both teams.”

The Eagles are scheduled to host Mountain Iron-Buhl on Friday and play Babbitt-Embarrass at home a week later. Cook will host Babbitt-Embarrass on Friday and travels to AlBrook on Tuesday to face the Falcons.