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The Viking boys' basketball team defeated Irondale 51-47 at NBHS Tuesday, January 8.

The game was very close in the early minutes. Midway through the first period it was tied at 14. Both teams went scoreless for the next four minutes before Vikings Kirk Dahle, Deon Farr and Kyle Grote hit from outside in a 61 second span. Jake Chambers added two freethrows and, with 3:36 left, the Vikings led 25-14. However, Irondale came back to outscore the Vikings 17-4, including a last second three-pointer, to take a 31-29 halftime lead.

The Vikings took the lead back with 12:08 remaining when John Lindstrom's three gave the Vikings a 38-35 lead. Two minutes later, Eric Sampson scored on a putback and hit his freethrow. His points gave the Vikings a 40-39 advantage, a lead they held for the rest of the game.

"We won this game by staying within the framework of what we do best. We built an early first half lead and let them come back and take the lead before half. We came out the second half and executed much better. We held them to 16 second half points by being patient on offense and being aggressive on the defensive end," said Viking head coach Bill Baumann.

SCORING SUMMARY

North Branch 29 22 51

Irondale 31 16 47

Viking Scoring

Ryan Norman 5

Deon Farr 3

Kyle Grote 5

John Lindstrom 9

Kirk Dahle 3

Eric Sampson 7

Dan Ginal 6

Jake Chambers 13

Total 51

NB at Columbia Heights

Friday, January 11, the Vikings trailed most of the game and were defeated 72-64 by the Hylanders.

"As smart as we played against Irondale we played equally not smart against Columbia Heights," coach Baumann said.

Five minutes into the game, the Vikings trailed 8-6. With 1:40 to go in the half, it was 33-27 Heights when things went bad for NB. The Hylanders scored the last 10 points of the period to take a 43-27 lead into the locker room.

"It wasn't so much what they did but what we did, or rather didn't do, by executing," Baumann explained. "We tried to get too cute and we got sloppy. We were down three with four minutes to go in the half and we let them build that to a 16 point lead going into the locker room. We are having trouble finishing off the first half. We have a tendency to get sloppy and let the opposition get on a run. It's something we have to clean up."

In the second half, the home team built its margin to as much as 20 and were still leading by 17 (66-49) with five minutes left. Then, over the next two and a half minutes, the Vikings came back from the freethrow line. In that stretch, Kyle Grote and Mike Dahl each scored five from the line, closing the gap to 66-59 with 2:41 left. But, CH held on to earn the win.

"We have turned into a good second half team and we seem to have a run of some sort during the half. We rallied in the last couple of minutes to cut it to six. I hope we can learn from this and build off what we did right to get back into the game," Baumann concluded.

SCORING SUMMARY

North Branch 27 37 64

Columbia Hts. 43 29 72

Viking Scoring

Ryan Norman 5

Kyle Grote 12

John Lindstrom 10

Eric Sampson 2

Dan Ginal 4

Jake Chambers 13

Mike Dahl 10

Bryce Hunter 8

Total 64

The Vikings entertain Chisago Lakes tonight, Thursday January 17 and travel to Spring Lake Park Tuesday, January 22. The start time for the North Suburban Conference games is 7:15.

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