UNIONVILLE – In a game of ebbs and flows, the Community Middle Vikings erased a halftime deficit with a big third quarter and used a balanced scoring attack to defeat the Forrest Rockets 51-40 in a basketball game Monday night.

The Vikings came out hot in the opening quarter.

Community connected on three treys and used six points each from Landon Berman and Austin Stickler to take a 17-9 lead heading to the second quarter.

Points were hard to come by as the Vikings could only manage four points in the quarter.

Meanwhile, the Rockets erased a 9-point Community lead with a 10-0 run and took a 22-21 lead into halftime.

The Rockets led 26-23 early in the third quarter before the Vikings righted the ship.

Led by 10 points from Landon Lovvorn and seven points from Austin Wilson, Community scored the next 14 points to take a 37-26 lead.

The Vikings ended the quarter with a 43-34 advantage.

Forrest would not go away and used a 6-0 run to cut the Viking lead to 45-40 with 2:15 remaining.

Community responded with the final six points of the game and ended with the 11-point margin of victory.

Stickler led three Vikings in double figures with 15 points.

Wilson scored 14 points and Lovvorn added 12 for Community.

Community travels to Central Magnet Thursday night.

Forrest 9 13 12 6 — 40

Community 17 4 22 8 — 51