March 5, 2009 at 8:33 a.m.
March 5, 2009
North Branch closes door on regular season with win over Chisago Lakes
Kendra Norman’s 26 points and seven steals help stave off a hard-charging Wildcat squad
North Branch closes door on regular season with win over Chisago Lakes
Wildcat freshman forward Whitney Tinjum scored 12 of her team's first 13 points, leading them to an early 13-8 lead at North Branch Friday, February 27. However, the Vikings, led by sophomore guard Kendra Norman (26 points and seven steals), came back to lead by as many as 11 before winning the final regular season game for both teams 59-54.
After Norman opened the scoring with a 12 footer 90 seconds into the game, Tinjum scored the next seven points. Summer Young assisted Tinjum on a breakaway layup with 12:05 left in the half, putting the visitors up 7-3. Viking senior Megan Scherer countered with a putback and Becca Collins hit the first of two freethrows at 10:53. That cut the Wildcat lead to 7-6.
CL sophomore Kasie Shoberg's free throw and Norman's two from the stripe tied it at 8-8 with 10:22 remaining. Tinjum scored five before going to the bench with her second personal. Collins' first hoop, at the half's midpoint, made it 13-10 with Chisago still ahead. Cassie Trandahl hit a two and Kelsey Ristow scored twice for the 'Cats and Norman made two shots and Jessica Audette hit a pair from the charity stripe in the next four minutes. Chisago's three point, 19-16 lead, was intact at the five-minute mark.
The Vikings had tied it at 21 apiece when Tinjum returned with two minutes remaining. She scored three more points and Ristow drained a three before the half. Meanwhile, Onalee Yousey scored and Rikki Beaver dropped a three. That left CL with a 27-26 lead when the teams went to the locker rooms. "We actually started shooting poorly, like we did in the St. Anthony game, by missing 16 of our first 18 shots," Viking head coach Dan Schindler commented. "But, after that, we settled down and got our shooting touch back by getting to the freethrow line."
The NSC foes took turns with the lead early in the second half. The score was 31-31 when Josie Forstrom's basket gave the Viking's the lead for good with 13:50 on the clock. By the eight-minute mark, a Collins freethrow put the Vikings up 41-35, their biggest lead to that point. "We were in some major foul trouble early in the second half and called upon freshman Cassidy Coleman who has basically no varsity experience," Schindler noted. "Cassidy is a very smart player and she came in and gave us some great minutes. We always talk about our bench being ready and Cassidy did that for us."
Audette's basket, after a North Branch timeout, pushed the North Branch lead to eight. Two Young hoops from the paint, sandwiched around a Collins three-point-play made it 46-39 with seven minutes left. Norman gave the Vikings a more comfortable lead a minute later. In a six second span, she scored on a drive at 6:03 and, after stealing the Wildcat inbounds pass, scored six seconds later to give NB a 50-39 bulge.
Two minutes later, another Norman score gave the Vikings their biggest lead, 54-43. "In the second half, Kendra Norman took over the game for us," Schindler added. "Kendra is our best shooter and she really did a nice job of being active in our offense. Kendra ended up with 18 second half points for us and had 26 for the game. I thought the difference in the game was Kendra on offense and our ability to play good enough team defense to hold Tinjum and Chisago down."
Led by eighth grader Hannah Trandahl's back-to-back baskets, the Wildcats outscored NB 11-5 in the final minutes. But, the Norman-led Vikings held on for the five-point conference win.
"Megan Scherer did a nice job leading us in rebounding with 10 boards. I also thought Rebecca Collins played great and chipped in with some key baskets and had 11 points. It was really our style of game. We found a way to keep it close and were able pull it out at the end," Schindler concluded.
GAME SUMMARY
Chisago Lakes 27 27 54
North Branch 26 33 59
NORTH BRANCH SCORING
Scherer 6, Beaver 4 , Yousey 2, Collins 11, Norman 26 , Audette 8 , Forstrom 2
Assistant Coach of the Year
Assistant Coach Jerome Huselid was voted by the Section Coaches as Assistant Section 3AAA Coach of the Year. Congratulations to Jerome. I have 3 great assistant coaches (Justin Sawyer and Alison Trampe the two others) and Jerome certainly deserves this award. Most people don't realize all the hard work the assistant coaches do to make our team better.
Jessica Audette drives past CL's Kelsey Ristow en route to the basket in the teams second meeting of the season, won by North Branch 59-54.
The Wildcats' Kasie Shoberg boxes out an opponent, ready to nab an offensive rebound.
North Branch's Rebecca Collins struggles to get the ball to an opponent in the middle of a myriad of Wildcat defenders. Although Chisago Lakes got the better of this possession, Collins and the Vikings downed the Wildcats 59-54 in front of their home crowd.
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