NILES — Even when the Niles boys basketball team was trailing Portage Central by 30 points, head coach Patrick Touhey watched his team never talk about quitting.

“What a lot of people won’t understand is that this was a big test for us tonight as a team,” Touhey said, following the Vikings’ 66-39 loss to the Mustangs.

“Up to this point when we faced adversity earlier, we got into some destructive [behavior], getting down on our energy and attitude,” he said.

Leading up to Niles’ game against Portage Central, team discussion was centered around making a different decision to shine even when it would be hard, Touhey said.

The game opened up with Niles players focusing largely on their passing game before taking shots, a new implementation by Touhey to give his team more control.

“We’ve implemented the last two games that we have to get five passes and three executions before we look for a score,” he said. “We did that because we were losing focus on executing. We were coming down taking quick shots and turning the ball over with bad quick passes.”

Touhey noticed during the game that his team’s turnovers were down. He also noticed that his team had shooting opportunities, but could not get them to fall.

“We had a lot of opportunities where we penetrated, jump-stopped, and shot our little five-footers,” he said. “We couldn’t put them in tonight. Usually we have better success at doing that. Those shots have to fall.”

Portage Central took the lead in the first quarter with help from Luke Leto, who proved hard to defend as he played strong at the post and from outside the three.

“Leto is a beast. We had no answer for him,” Touhey said. “The guy was out of this world tonight.”

Senior Cerious Wilson led the Vikings with 18 points, followed by senior Demarien Nichols, who scored six to help out Niles.

The Niles girls basketball team was put into a similar situation against an equally skilled Portage Central team.

From the beginning, the Mustangs took the lead and continued to counteract Niles’ scoring opportunities.

“I thought they worked really hard and put a lot of effort in and adjusted well.” said head coach Jessica Johnson of her team’s performance. “We put in a new offense in the middle of the game because of the packed line defense Portage Central was running.”

Johnson said the change helped her team in the second half. In the fourth quarter, the Vikings were stuck on 33 points for a majority of the quarter.

“Portage Central is a good team,” Johnson said. “They have those long arms and it’s very difficult to get in there. Our girls like to drive to the basket and they shut us down there and so we had to adjust and that hurt us offensively.”

Despite the loss, sophomores Kamryn Patterson and Amara Palmer stood out in their performances, alongside senior Alycia Patterson.

Johnson said the two sophomores have continued to improve and impress her with their performances.

“I’m hoping they will get this experience under their belt with Alycia on the floor as they continue to improve,” Johnson said.

The Niles girls basketball team will return to the court on Monday at Berrien Springs. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. The boys team will play on Tuesday at home against Buchanan. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:15 p.m.