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The North Branch girls' basketball team lost two games against two of the top teams in the conference last week. Tuesday, February 5 the Vikings lost at Benilde-St-Margaret's 64-49. Friday, February 8 they lost to St. Francis 66-45 in North Branch.

"We just don't match up very well with these teams. They are bigger, quicker, and have much more varsity experience than we do," said North Branch head coach Dan Schindler. "But, we continue to play hard and we do see improvement from the beginning of the year."

North Branch at Benilde

Benilde extended its winning streak to eight in the win. "They are a very athletic team who can really put a lot of pressure on us," Schindler said. "Our guards are learning on the job, how to handle a lot of pressure - seeing different kinds of presses."

The Vikings fell behind 12-2 early, but settled down and got back into the game at 18-12. "We were down 10 at halftime, 28-18, and played pretty good basketball after breaking their press a few times," Schindler added. "We need to learn it takes all five players to help break a good press.

"Many times we have three or four girls doing their jobs. But, if the fifth girl isn't, our press break doesn't work," the coach continued. "In the second half, Benilde picked up their pressure and we struggled getting into our offense. Every game, our girls are learning and we hope that we can end the last couple of the weeks strong. We are certainly getting better while learning on the job."

Kristen Robatcek had another strong game with 22 points and seven steals. Jessica Audette, from the point, had a nice floor game with six steals and six assists. With Ashley Johnson still out due to injury, Megan Scherer picked up some of the inside work and scored 10 points for the Vikings.

GAME SUMMARY

North Branch 18 31 49

Benilde 28 36 64

Viking Scoring

Cori Fairbanks 2

Kristen Robatcek 22

Jessica Audette 1

Miranda Charley 4

Megan Scherer 10

Rebecca Collins 2

Amanda Sylla 8

Total 49

Against St. Francis, the Vikings were matched up with a team rated number six in 4A that already had 20 wins for the season. "They are a veteran club that has good athletes who can run the floor and they shoot the basketball well," Schindler said.

The home team stayed with the Saints for the first nine minutes of the game. Schindler continued, "But, then they really hurt us with their press. We just can't stay with good teams if we turn the ball over 20 times in the first half. Our young guards' inexperience showed.

"At times we just don't make good decisions and St. Francis turned our mistakes into points. We trailed 41-22 at halftime. We played much better the second half and cut the lead down to 12 points at one time, but could get no closer," the coach commented.

Robatcek led the Vikings, again, with 14 points. And, according to Schindler, senior Cori Fairbanks had a very nice game, including a seven-point performance.

GAME SUMMARY

St. Francis 41 25 66

North Branch 22 23 45

Viking Scoring

Cori Fairbanks 7

Kristen Robatcek 14

Jessica Audette 3

Kendra Norman 5

Miranda Charley 2

Megan Scherer 8

Rikki Beaver 3

Amanda Sylla 2

Ashley Johnson 1

Total 49

With tongue in cheek, Schindler commented about the Vikings' next opponent, "Now it gets easy as we travel to Totino Tuesday to play the number three rated team in the state, who is on a 20-game winning streak.

"We are learning, but our conference is really good at the top. We are better now than we were in December and January and we just need to keep working hard. Our schedule is more favorable at the end of the season and we hope to get a few wins going into the tournament," the coach projected.

After the Totino game, which was scheduled for Tuesday, February 12, the Vikings entertain Irondale tonight (Thursday, February 14) and travel to Columbia Heights Tuesday, February 19. All three NSC contests are scheduled for 7:15 starts.

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