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St. Francis 55, North Branch 53

The North Branch boys' basketball team hoped to kick off the 2009 portion of its season with a conference win at home Tuesday, January 5. The Vikings came ever-so-close before falling, in overtime, 55-53 to St. Francis.

The Vikings had trouble on the offensive end early as the Saints built a 4-0 lead in the first three minutes. During that span, North Branch only managed to get one shot against the SF defenders.

At 14:52, senior Mike Dahl broke the ice for the Vikes when, on a nice feed from classmate Ryan Norman, he scored from the block on the right side. After St. Francis retook a four point lead, junior Kyle Grote cut it in half, the assist going to senior Deon Farr at the 14:18 mark. Seconds later, the Saints hit a three, making their lead 9-4.

The Viking defense stiffened, giving the home team a chance to crawl back to a tie. Dahl hit the second of two freethrows, Jake Grandahl scored on a 15 footer and Grote hit a pull-up jumper from 12. Grote's hoop knotted the low scoring contest at 9-9 with eight minutes left in the period.

Led by the backcourt tandem of Grote and Norman, NB took its first lead over the next three minutes. After he took a hard foul trying to complete a fast break, Grote hit the first of two at the freethrow line. He followed that with a three and Norman converted both ends of a one-and-one. With 4:49 left in the half, the Vikings led 15-11.

As the intermission drew near, despite hoops by Viking juniors Kosta Moore and Drew Lundquist and a Lundquist freethrow, the Saints crept back to tie it at 20 with 16 seconds left. Grote gave the home fans something to cheer about when he hit a fall-away jumper from just inside the arc as time ran out. The two gave NB a 22-20 halftime lead.

The Saints took advantage of cold shooting by North Branch in the first third of the second half.

The visitors went on an 11-2 run to open the period. Only Grote's banker from the lane interrupted 11 St. Francis points as they took a 31-24 lead.

The host Vikings started to whittle the lead when Farr scored on a putback with 11:55 remaining. Moore hit a three and added a freethrow. Farr hit a mid-range jumper and, when Lundquist hit the first of two at the charity stripe, the game was deadlocked again. The scoreboard showed 7:30 and 34 points for each team.

The Saints' 7-2 run put them up 41-36 with four minutes remaining. NB came back again. Dahl's triple from the top of the key capped an 11-6 run that evened the score at 47 with 45 ticks on the clock. The drama nearly ended when the Saints held the ball until the final seconds.

The visitors appeared to have things under control when they netted a long three with six seconds left in regulation. Viking head coach Bill Baumann called a time out to plan strategy. When play resumed, Norman took the ball up the north sideline. A St. Francis defender wrapped both arms around the Viking ballhandler. Both officials blew their whistles and crossed their arms, signaling an intentional foul.

Norman hit the second of his charity tosses to bring the Vikings within two. After a timeout by Baumann and another by Saint head coach Ryan Hauge, Dahl took the ball for the Vikings in front of the NB bench. When the whistle blew, senior center Aaron Good rolled across the lane from the far side. Dahl hit him with a perfect strike and Good banked it in at the buzzer.

The four minute overtime started with a pair of 50's on the scoreboard.

The Saints controlled the tip and the ball for almost two minutes before they took a 52-50 lead on a pair of freethrows. At 1:33, Dahl knotted it on a hoop off an out-of-bounds play before SF regained the lead on a freethrow with 56 seconds left. The Vikings were unable to get anything to drop on their next possession and were forced to foul as time ran out. The Saints hit two more freethrows and Norman hit the first of two in the last second of play.

St. Francis went home with a hard-fought 55-53 win.

"I'm really excited about the direction our team is taking," Baumann commented. "We are making progress. If we start taking care of the "little things" we can turn into a pretty good team. We are gaining confidence on the offensive end and we are starting to work together on the defensive end. With everybody back now we have started to build some pretty good depth. We just have to get a feel for each other. We have to clean up the silly turnovers we are committing and start making our free throws. We are a pretty good free throw shooting team but it doesn't show right now because we are really hurrying our shots. We played three tough games this week and we have three more this week. This is where our depth will really pay off."

Baumann continued, "We had our opportunities to win this game but we need to make our free throws and make a big shot to get us over the hump. We drew up a play at the end of regulation and the kids did a super job. Mike Dahl went through all the options and then found Aaron Good for the tying basket. We drew up another with 10 seconds to go and we executed that perfectly and we had an open shot but it popped out."

GAME SUMMARY

St. Francis 20 30 5 55

North Branch 22 28 3 53

NORTH BRANCH SCORING

Lundquist 6, Norman 4, Farr 5, Grote 13, Grandahl 6, Moore 6, Dahl 9, Good 4

Spring Lake Park 73, North Branch 59

In a North Suburban Conference game that featured plenty of accurate, long-range shooting, the Vikings hosted the Panthers Friday, January 9. Vikings Kyle Grote and Mike Dahl combined for eight three-pointers and 37 points, but their scoring wasn't enough to keep pace with a trio of Panther marksmen who scored 60. SLP outpointed NB 73-59.

Despite three early triples by Grote and Dahl, the Panthers raced to a 19-9 lead in the first half of the opening period. Viking head coach Bill Baumann called a timeout and his team responded with a four-minute, 10-2 run that cut the Park lead to 21-19 with five minutes left in the half. Deon Farr and Anders Lindstrom scored from inside and Dahl and Grote each scored from beyond the arc during the run. The game stayed close for the next two minutes as Dahl and Farr hit bombs for the Vikes. With just over three minutes left, the Vikings had closed the gap to 26-25.

However, in the final minutes of the half, the Panthers threw in shots from all over the court. They scored 14 points, from inside, outside and the freethrow line while North Branch could manage only five. The visitors went to the locker room with a 40-30 advantage.

Viking center Aaron Good narrowed the deficit to eight in the second half's first minute. But, the Panthers pushed the red and white into catch-up mode with a three-minute, 8-0 run that gave SLP a 48-32 lead. Just when the Vikings seemed gone, they sprinted back with their own 8-0 outburst. With 12 minutes remaining, the shooting of Grote and Dahl brought NB back. They trailed 50-40.

Ryan Norman and Drew Lindquist got into the scorebook in the next third of the half, but the Panthers more than matched their hosts and they led 65-50 with six minutes left in the game. In the waning minutes, the Vikings cut the margin to 12 on two occasions, but were never able to get any closer.

"This game was physical and we didn't adjust until the second half. Spring lake Park has some excellent players and they know how to close out a game," coach Baumann explained.

GAME SUMMARY

Spring Lake Park 40 33 73

North Branch 30 29 59

NORTH BRANCH SCORING

Lundquist 2, Norman 5, Farr 7, Grote 21, Dahl 16, Good 5, Lindstrom 2, Franks 1

North Branch 78, Duluth Denfeld 67

The Vikings bounced back quickly after the Friday night loss to Spring Lake Park and picked up their first win of 2009 Saturday, January 10. In a 2:00 pm start, NB rode a first half hot streak to beat the Hunters from Duluth Denfeld 78-67.

North Branch looked a little sluggish at the start, falling behind 13-7 in the first five minutes. However, they settled down and crawled back into the contest by outscoring Denfeld 15-12 during the middle third of the half. Deon Farr, Mike Dahl, Sean Graff and Kyle Grote scored during that stretch. With seven minutes left, the Vikings trailed 25-22.

For the rest of the half, the Vikings used their team speed and passing game to get excellent shots. Drew Lundquist (6 points), Ryan Norman (6), Grote (5) and Jake Grandahl (4) led a rapidfiren assault that netted 26 points. Meanwhile, the swarming NB defense limited the Hunters to seven. When the buzzer sounded at halftime, the Vikings held a 48-32 advantage.

Denfeld started strong in the second half. They cut the Viking lead to 50-43 before the home team came back to life with 11 minutes to play. Over the next three minutes, balanced Viking scoring pushed the lead back to 12.

From the five minute mark, North Branch slowed the pace, looking for good shots and burning as much clock as possible. Their patience paid off as Duluth was forced to foul to stop the clock. Six of their final eight points came from the freethrow line and the Hunters were unable to get close enough to mount a serious threat as time ran out.

"I was nervous about this game because of the physical game we played the night before. We didn't come out and play well to start out," Baumann said, "but this is where our depth paid off. We were able to sub quite liberally and it kept us fresh and we were able to open up a pretty good lead in the first half. Give Denfeld credit, they could have quit after the first half but they kept coming at us."

GAME SUMMARY

Duluth Denfeld 32 35 67

North Branch 48 30 78

NORTH BRANCH SCORING

Lundquist 12, Norman 14, Farr 6, Graff 4, Grote 18, Dahl 8, Good 1, Moore 3, Franks 2, Grandahl 10

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