It was a shaky start to the night for Geneva junior Ben Peterson.

Within the first 90 seconds against Wheaton North, the junior forward already had two turnovers to his name and was quickly taken out by Vikings coach Scott Hennig for a quick discussion.

“He just pulled me out real quick, gave me a quick talk to just lock back in,” Peterson said. “He just wanted me to wipe it off and forget it, go back out and do my thing.”

Safe to say, he locked in for the night.

Peterson went on to put up a team-high 17 points across the first and fourth quarters, helping the Vikings pull away for a 62-47 victory over the Falcons.

“I’ve known him since I was 11, since my wife (Stephanie) was his fifth grade teacher, and one thing I’ve learned is that sometimes he just needs a kick in the butt,” Hennig said. “You can yell at him and he’ll just say, ‘Yes, sir,’ and go back in and do the best he can, and that’s all I can ask for.”

Peterson, who currently holds four Division 1 offers for football, set the tone early for the Vikings (21-6 overall, 8-4 DuKane) with eight points in the first quarter, all coming from the paint.

“We were working on going inside all week,” Peterson said. “Coach Hennig keeps saying to be deceptive and sneaky to get around the defense and grab the easy layups. My guards just made it so easy to go right up for the score.”

However, foul trouble caused Peterson to miss a majority of the second and third quarters, not even recording a single shot attempt during those frames. But after hitting a corner 3 to start the fourth quarter, it sparked a 14-4 run for the Vikings to put the game out of reach.

“He really went out and played one of his best games of the season,” Hennig said. “He’s just a worker that takes coaching so well. He’s had some bumps in the road this year, and he just keeps working at them.”

Peterson benefitted plenty from his teammates finding him in the paint, especially senior Gabe Jensen, who had eight of the team’s 22 assists on the night.

“They were just coming out more on defense, so I knew I could get more passes inside to Ben,” Jensen said. “He had a really good game, so I was just doing my best to try and find him on the inside.”

Peterson wasn’t the only one benefitting from the scoring spree. Senior Nathan Palmer had 14 points and four 3-pointers. Junior David Udiowod finished with 11, both also adding four assists.

“Our strength is handling the ball out on the perimeter, so I personally love when teams press us,” Hennig said. “We’ve got multiple guys that can handle the ball, and the team is just so unselfish. They know what us coaches want offensively, and they did that.”

Wheaton North (15-10, 5-8) did keep the game interesting throughout the middle stanzas. After trailing by as many as 13 midway through the second quarter, the Falcons cut the score to 37-36 midway through the third quarter. But back-to-back 3s from Palmer put up the deficit they couldn’t recover from.

“It just felt like we were beat off the bounce, and that left us chasing and scrambling that put us in a deficit,” Falcons coach David Eaton said. “I thought we had a stretch from the end of the second quarter through the beginning of the third where we played really well.

“We’ve just got to put 32 minutes together.”

Leading the charge for the Falcons was junior Ben Gillmar, who put up 14 points and eight rebounds. Junior Henry Schlickman added 11 points.

“You know, I think we’re still playing some really good basketball right now,” Eaton said. “When we guarded them, we played really well. But if we’re not guarding against really good teams like Geneva, it just gives them plenty of open opportunities, and they took them.”