The Valley Central Vikings looked like a team that hadn’t played in 10 days.

They struggled taking care of the basketball early, resulting in nine turnovers in the first quarter. They played even with the Goshen Gladiators through the first half before pulling away in the third quarter, on their way to a 51-42 win in Saturday’s Orange County Interscholastic Athletic Association boys’ basketball game.

“At the beginning, we fell apart, and we weren’t really in sync together,” Valley Central forward Donovan Davis said. “I messed up and my teammates messed up, but in the second half, (Valley Central) coach (Frank Nutt) told us we’ve got to get into it mentally and physically, and we couldn’t go at it half speed.”

The first time these two teams played, the Vikings torched the Gladiators from beyond the 3-point arc, but this time around, the Goshen defense limited Jason Murphy and Armando Perez.

“They watch a lot of film on us and we watch film on them,” Davis said. “They started to realize what we do, and we had to change how we play to get us more open shots, open layups and things like that, and just be able to communicate on defense.”

However, while Murphy was limited to eight points, he hit the shots that mattered most. His 3-pointer with 3:34 left in the third quarter broke a 32-32 tie. Not only did it give the Vikings the lead for good, but it also started an 8-0 Valley Central run that gave the Vikings a 40-32 lead at halftime.

“They did a good job of getting a hand in his face every single time he touched the ball,” Nutt said. “We could probably do a better job of getting him shots, but they focus so much on him, and it opens things up for (Nasir Trotter) and Alex (Miller) and opened things up for Shawn (Magby).”

Davis and Magby each had 12 points to lead the Vikings. Magby did most of his damage in the first half, scoring 10 of his points, doing his part to keep the Vikings even with the Gladiators.

“Shawn’s a sophomore and he’s played almost 35 games on varsity,” Nutt said. “He’s played more varsity basketball than most juniors and seniors have. When he gets the ball in the middle like that, he’s tough to stop.”

Davis did most of his damage in the second half. After Goshen’s Seamus Smith knocked down a 3-pionter to cut the Vikings’ lead to five points, Davis scored four straight points and then Murphy’s second 3-pointer restored their 12-point lead.

Four of Davis’ second half points came off offensive rebounds.

“Rebounds can win or lose a game for you,” Davis said. “The amount of offensive rebounds you give up, could potentially make you lose the game.”

Before taking the court on Saturday, the Vikings hadn’t played in 10 days, since their 60-48 win over the Pine Bush Bushmen on Jan. 17. Saturday’s game started a stretch of seven games until the regular season finale on Feb. 15.

“We’re not comfortable; we don’t ever want to be comfortable,” Davis said. “We want to excel. We don’t want to just sit in one spot. We want to get 1 percent better every single day.”