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Last season, the North Branch Viking girls ended Benilde-St. Margaret's 63-game conference winning streak in a game at NBHS. However positive Viking fans may have been that their team would beat the Red Knights again, they'll have to wait until at least the next matchup. Tuesday, December 18, BSM took the early lead and controlled most of the game, beating the Vikings 68-42.

On a positive note, Viking senior Kristen Robatcek, coming back from an early-season injury, played a very aggressive game, giving the Vikings hope for the near future.

With the Vikings trailing 29-12 late in the first half, Robatcek took the ball in front of the Benilde bench and beat all the Knights to the hoop. Before the half, ninth grader Kendra Norman and sophomore Rikki Beaver scored from the freethrow line, but the Vikings still trailed 34-16.

Senior center Ashley Johnson dropped two from the foul line 18 seconds into the second period. For the next four minutes, the Vikings dominated play, getting numerous offensive rebounds, but couldn't get the ball through the hoop. Norman's putback of a blocked shot made it 34-20 with 13:40 left in the game.

A half minute later another Robatcek drive made it 36-22 and the Viking fans had hope. But, only Johnson's basket and pair of freethrows interrupted 12 Benilde points in the next four minutes, giving the Knights a 51-26 lead.

A Becca Collins freethrow and a three-point-play by Jessica Audette followed for the Vikes. The points the two sophomores made, and a pair of charity throws by Robatcek, made it 55-31 with less than six minutes remaining.

Norman, Megan Scherer, Robatcek, and Onalee Yousey scored as the teams exchanged baskets down the stretch.

"Benilde is one of the better teams in the conference and certainly gives our team some matchup problems," said Viking head coach Dan Schindler. "Right now, we are just trying to worry about our team and making us a better team each game.

"The biggest problem we have right now is that we are not shooting the basketball well enough. Both teams shot 58 shots for the game, but Benilde made 25 (including seven three pointers) while we only made 14. Many times we seem to be rushing our shots right now. We need to make sure we are taking good shots. Much of that is just our inexperience showing.

"On the positive side, our defensive effort is getting better. We are starting to understand our roles in our team defense. Our attitude also stays strong as we are going thruough some rough times on the scoreboard," Schindler continued." I am hoping, after the break, our team can get healthy and some of our inexperience will start to disappear and we can play better basketball as a team. We know this will take some time and we just need to be patient and keep working hard."

SCORING SUMMARY

North Branch 16 26 42

Fridley 34 34 68

Viking Scoring

Kristen Robatcek 9

Jessica Audette 5

Kendra Norman 7

Megan Scherer 5

Rikki Beaver 3

Ashley Johnson 9

Rebecca Collins 1

Onalee Yousey 3

Total 42

After a few days off for the Christmas break, North Branch will play in the Simley Holiday Tournament December 27-29. They resume their NSC schedule when they host Totino-Grace Thursday, January 3 at 7:15

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