---

The North Branch girls split two basketball games last week. Thursday, January 4 the Vikings traveled to Totino-Grace and fell 57-41. Saturday afternoon, January 6, NB picked up its fifth win of the year by beating Duluth Denfeld 60-32 at home.  

North Branch 18 23 41

Totino Grace 31 26 57 

"Totino-Grace is really a good basketball team," said North Branch head coach Dan Schindler.   "Benilde and Totino are the best two teams in our conference and they both just present match-up problems for teams. They both have bigger and stronger post players and have quick guards who are very good shooters." 

Once again, the Vikings played hard, but had trouble scoring, especially in the first half. "I thought we really battled Totino, but still trailed 31-18 at halftime," the coach said. The Vikings didn't get many second chances as they were outrebounded 21-7 by the Eagles before halftime, including 14 on the offensive end. Totino took advantage of those second chances to build its lead.  

After the intermission, North Branch cut the lead to 10 and had the ball. But, the Vikings missed a wide open three that would have cut the deficit to seven. After the miss, Totino took advantage by draining a shot from behind the arc to push their advantage back to 13.

"I was pleased we are starting to shoot the basketball better, now.  We are better now than we were in December and we continue to work hard to be a better basketball team," Schindler added.

Gabrielle Olson picked up her 500th career assist during the game to go along with her 10 points. Junior Kristen Robatcek continued to be the Vikings' most reliable scorer by scoring 15 points. She also had seven steals for the Vikes.

North Branch Scoring 

Kacie Ramberg 2

Tiffany Good 8

Kristen Robatcek 15

Gabrielle Olson 10

Ashley Johnson 6  

Total 41

Duluth Denfeld 16 16 32

North Branch 29 31 60 

"It's been a while since we've had an easy win. So, this was fun to get all the girls in the game," said coach Schindler.

The Vikings applied full court pressure early in the game and it really caused problems for the Hunters. "We were able to get out to an 11-2 lead and never look back. We also got some scoring from more players, which is something we need to be successful," Schindler commented. Kristen Robatcek, Tiffany Good, Gabrielle Olson and Randi Zentner all ended up in double figures for NB. 

"It's really nice to see Randi step up and get 10 points for us.  Ashley Johnson also added six, so we were able to get some points from our post players in the game," Schindler added.  

Senior point guard Olson had a great game with 11 points, nine steals, eight assists and eight rebounds. "We ARE getting better.  We shot 44 percent for game and won the rebounding battle 40-26.  We are hoping we have turned the corner some and can keep up our better play," Schindler concluded.  

North Branch Scoring

Tiffany Good 12

Randi Zentner 10

Ellie Fairbanks 1

Kristen Robatcek 16

Megan Scherer 2

Lacee Scherer 2

Gabrielle Olson 11

Ashley Johnson 6

Total 60  

North Branch travels to Columbia Heights Friday, January 12 before returning home to host Robbinsdale -Cooper Tuesday, January 16. Both games are scheduled to start at 7:15.

---