The Christiana Vikings improved to 5-4 with a 51-45 victory over the St. Mark's Spartans (4-6) on Saturday afternoon in Milltown.

The victory was the fifth straight for Christiana following an 0-4 start to their season.

Second-year Christiana coach Nate Mariano said he was proud of the turnaround, especially considering that on Saturday they started four juniors and one freshman and were without the services of leading scorer Derrick Archie, who suffered a minor injury in a 71-60 win over Alexis I. du Pont the previous night.

"We're starting to come together as a team," Mariano said. "I told the kids at the beginning of the season that we had as much talent as anyone, but that we needed to add in the intangibles. We needed to do the little things, like diving on the floor and playing tough defense.

"We have a lot of new faces and a lot of young guys and they're starting to learn to play together. I told them that we haven't even scratched the surface of what we're capable of yet."

When asked if he felt that there was a particular moment that sparked his team, Mariano pointed to the team's second victory, a 51-35 decision over Salesianum on December 22.

"After a tough Kappa tournament (0-3 finish) we came on strong and started to bond," Mariano said. "The Salesianum game going into the (Christmas) break really helped our confidence. We didn't play for about a week and a half after that, but we had some good practices and it gave us momentum."

Against St. Mark's, the Vikings jumped out to a 6-0 lead and never trailed. Anthony Boyer led the Vikings with 11 points, four steals and three blocked shots, while Tim Steed added 10 points and four steals, and Aaron Meades chipped in eight points, seven rebounds, two steals and one blocked shot.

The Vikings forced 27 turnovers in the game, including a stunning 13 in the first quarter when the Spartans scored just three points.

St. Mark's battled back in the second quarter and pulled within 12-11 on a jumper by senior captain Matt Hamm (eight points, six rebounds), but the Vikings ended the half with a 10-1 run. Freshman forward Paul Reynolds capped the run with a long, buzzer-beating three-pointer over three defenders, staking Christiana to a 22-12 halftime lead.

Christiana eventually took their biggest lead of the game – 46-28 – on a dunk by Steed with 4:30 left in the fourth quarter, but St. Mark's went on a 17-5 run to make the final score respectable.

Steed's dunk was the final field goal of the game for the Vikings, who managed to make just 5-of-13 free throws down the stretch and 13-of-29 for the game.

"Coming off a really tough game last night I was concerned about our level of intensity heading into today," Mariano said. "We were hanging onto the last rung of the ladder with tired legs today, but I have to give them credit for pulling out the W. Last night was an intense game and I think the kids really started to believe that we're a legit team."

Scott Wallace led St. Mark's with 10 points and he grabbed five rebounds, while Jamie Hagan scored eight points and Desmond Wynn pulled down a game-high eight rebounds. The Spartans held a 29-18 edge in rebounds, but they never established an offensive rhythm against Christiana's trapping 2-3 zone defense.

"We've been stepping up on defense and playing ball," Steed said. "We needed (Archie) today, but we stepped up without him. We tried to make it our game, which is more up-tempo (than St. Mark's). It feels great right now, much better than last year."

CHRISTIANA 51 ST. MARK'S 45

TEAMS

CHR 8 14 20 9 – 51

SMH 3 9 14 19 – 45

CHRISTIANA

[42] Steed 4-11, 2-5, 10 [21] Meades 3-8, 2-7, 8 [40] Boyer 3-8, 5-9, 11 [54] Reynolds 2-4, 2-4, 7 [24] Kosh 2-4, 2-4, 7 [10] Bobo 2-5, 0-0, 5 [14] Drummond 0-0, 0-0, 0 [12] Heyward 1-1, 0-0, 3 [35] Graham 0-0, 0-0, 0 Totals 17-41, 13-29, 51

3pt FG 4-8 (Reynolds 1-1, Heyward 1-1, Kosh 1-2, Bobo 1-2, Steed 0-1, Meades 0-1)

ST. MARK'S

[34] Hamm 4-9, 0-0, 8 [23] Wallace 3-11, 4-6, 10 [44] Wynn 1-3, 2-3, 4 [11] Hagan 3-5, 0-0, 7 [12] Baker 2-6, 3-8, 7 [21] Van Heest 2-5, 0-0, 5 [31] DiRocco 0-0, 0-0, 0 [22] Zechman 0-1, 0-0, 0 [24] Lafferty 1-1, 0-0, 2 [32] Constantini 0-3, 1-2, 1 Totals 16-44, 10-19, 45

3pt FG 3-14 (Hagan 2-2, Van Heest 1-4, Baker 0-4, Wallace 0-3, Zechman 0-1)