MASON — The Niles girls’ basketball team had to travel nearly 150 miles on Tuesday to play against the Holt Rams, who had to travel a mere seven miles for the opening round of the Class A Regional Tournament.

You wouldn’t have known that Niles had to travel that far as it had more than double the amount of fan support as their rival, and that fan base got to witness a gutty performance by the Vikings that pulled out the 10- point victory, 52-42.

“We had five kids that played tonight. Five kids played 32 minutes of basketball on a big floor. They never gave in and they never gave up heart,” said a proud Niles coach, Pat Touhey.

After an early basket by Savannah Wolnik gave the Vikings the lead, they quickly found themselves trailing by the count of 4-2 after baskets by Emily Klauka and Robyn Robinson. Not to be outdone, the Niles trio of Whitney Ellis, Nichole Sly and Maureen Craig rallied to score the next 11 points to put the Vikings back on top 13-4. Sly scored three the old-fashioned way, while Craig knocked down back to back 3-point bombs during the 11-0 run.

Holt got their own traditional three-point play from Shaleen Williams to stop the Viking run, and cut the lead to 13-7. Two free throws from Craig gave Niles the 15-7 advantage, but buckets by Robinson and Mandy Johnson cut the lead to just four, 15-11 at the end of the first quarter.

Craig paced Niles with eight points in the quarter.

The Rams, who had scored the last four points of the first quarter, picked right up where they had left off as they scored the first eight of the second quarter to take the 19-15 lead with under five minutes remaining in the half.

The 12-0 run by the Rams turned their eight-point deficit into a four-point lead.

Another long-range bomb by Craig stopped the Holt run and pulled Niles to back within one, 19-18.

A Craig free throw knotted the game back up at 19-19 and a bucket by Sly gave the Vikings the lead that they would never give back.

Niles would finish the half with baskets by Wolnik and Sly as it went to halftime clinging to a 25-21 lead.

Michelle Briand got the Vikings on the board first in the second half increasing the lead to six, 27-21. Back-to-back baskets by Ellis would keep Niles in front 31-26. A free throw by Autumn Baker and another three-point play by Robinson and the Rams were back in business, only trailing 31-30. Niles’ Craig would not let the Vikings lose their lead, however as she drained another three to give her team the 34-31 advantage heading into the final period.

Picking up where she left off, Craig hit back-to-back 3-pointers and the lead, which was once only one point, was now back up to nine, 40-31 with just six minutes remaining in the contest.

The rest of the way for the Vikings consisted of a few layups and several free throw attempts. Niles only connected on 6-of-11 from the charity stripe in the final quarter, but it defense on the other end of the floor helped keep the Rams at bay, and sent the Vikings on to the 52-42 victory.

“We had a task of trying to stop No. 22 (Mandy Johnson), their best player and Savannah Wolnik did a fantastic job on her. She is the heart of their offense and when she is scoring they are a very difficult team to play,” claimed Touhey. “My hat goes off to Savannah for the work that she has done. We have asked her to cover the best players of the other teams the last six or seven games and she has done an outstanding job for us.”

Wolnik held Johnson to only six points on the night, which was a big reason why the Vikings were able to hold the Rams to a mere 42 points.

“Nichole (Sly) did a great job on their big girl (Klauka), who is their second best player and has three inches on Nicole. She did a great job of positioning herself in the post defense and displacing her in the post,” Touhey continued.

Offensively the Vikings were led by Craig with 21 points, including six 3-point baskets. Sly contributed 16 points, followed by Ellis with seven and Wolnik with six.

The Rams were led by Robinson with 14, and Klauka with 12.

With the victory, Niles moves on to Thursday night’s regional final against East Lansing, a rematch of the regional final three years ago.