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The North Branch boys' basketball season came to an end at Spring Lake Park Tuesday, March 11. The Vikings lost to the top-seeded Panthers 60-48 in the first round of Section 3AAA playoffs.

"The game was a microcosm of the whole season," said Viking head coach Bill Baumann. "We fell behind early 15-1 and the kids could have just folded and quit at that time. But, they just had too much heart."

Senior Bryce Hunter scored the first Viking field goal in the game's eighth minute. Jake Chambers added a freethrow at 9:59, making the Park lead 15-4.

After SLP went up 17-4, the Vikings started a 13-5 run that put them back in the game. Kirk Dahle hit from the field at 9:35 and 30 seconds later, John Lindstrom was fouled while shooting. He made both freethrows to close the gap 17-8 midway through the half.

The Panthers hit a two and a three to regain a 14 point advantage with 7:31 to go. Hunter got the Vikings back on the board with his second hoop. Dahle hit a pair of foul shots and Chambers hit a mid-range shot and followed that with three. At 3:26, the Vikings were trailing 22-17.

Spring Lake Park came back with back-to-back shots to take a double digit lead with 2:20 remaining in the half. Lindstrom hit two more freethrows and Chambers added a two before the horn. When the teams left the floor, the Vikings trailed 27-21.

"We thought we had a good game plan and we stayed with it and fought our way back into the game. I really felt that we outplayed them the last 10 minutes of the first half and cut the deficit to six," Baumann commented.

In the second half, the conference foes played even for the first eight minutes. During that span, Chambers hit a two, a pair of freethrows and two three-pointers and Hunter added a pair of field goals. With less than 10 minutes remaining, the Panther lead was still six - 41-35.

Then the Vikings used their outside shooting to close the gap. Ryan Norman and Dan Ginal scored from long-range to cut the SLP lead to 43-41.

"We came out the second half and went toe-to-toe with them and finally drew within two when Danny Ginal hit a three pointer with seven and a half minutes left," the coach said. "SLP called a timeout and scored the next seven points. Danny hit another three pointer and was fouled for a four-point play to draw us to within 50-45 with five minutes left."

The Vikings had opportunities in the final minutes. But, a failure to make shots, especially from the freethrow line, took them out of contention. The Vikings converted only three of nine foul shots in the last five minutes. Meanwhile, the Panthers hit nine of 10 from the stripe.

"The last five minutes reflected our whole season," Baumann explained. "Our strategy the whole game was to attack them and I thought we did a pretty good job. Overall, we gave them everything they could handle. One of the big differences was in the rebound department (the Vikings were outrebounded 37-24). But that, again, reflected the whole season."

GAME SUMMARY

North Branch 21 27 48

Sp. Lk. Park 27 33 60

Viking Scoring

John Lindstrom 4

Jake Chambers 20

Bryce Hunter 10

Kirk Dahle 4

Ryan Norman 3

Dan Ginal 7

Total 48

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