AURORA – The Geneva boys basketball team had the pieces in place early in the fourth quarter to earn a quality victory over a defending state champion Thursday afternoon.

But then the bottom dropped out, and the Vikings were left scratching their heads about what went wrong after a 54-49 loss to defending Class 3A champion Peoria Central at the East Aurora Holiday Tournament.

“We’re disappointed obviously at how this happened,” Vikings coach Phil Ralston said, “but I told our kids ‘Hey, don’t let this happen again.’ We need to learn from this.”