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Although sandwiched in between two defeats, the North Branch boys tennis team finally earned their second North Suburban Conference win of the year.

Princeton 6, North Branch 1

With a whirlwind schedule on the week because of bad weather cancellations earlier in the season, the Vikings kicked it off with a tough loss to a supremely talented Princeton squad.

The only competitor from the Vikings to win a match was John Jakubowski at second singles. He downed Blake Humphrey of Princeton 6-2, 7-6 for the Vikes lone point.

Brandon Sonnenfeld and Brandon Johnson played a tight match at first doubles, but the pair was eventually downed 7-5, 1-6, 7-5.

North Branch 4, St. Francis 3

The Vikings earned their second victory of the year in the North Suburban when they beat up on St. Francis in an awfully close match.

After St. Francis's Blake McCreavy won the first point of the meet with a 6-0, 6-0 win at third singles, North Branch's Nick Lambrecht tied it up with a 6-2, 6-2 thrashing of Jason Pederson at first singles.

The duo of Sonnenfeld and Johnson pulled the Vikes in front with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Nolan Miller and Jupiter Xiong at first singles.

St. Francis evened the match at two points each when Zak Lambrecht lose at fourth singles.

St. Francis put the Vikings down to their last point when Kris Rich down Jakubowski at second singles. With a 3-2 deficit, North Branch knew they would have to win the other two doubles matches to pull out the victory.

Brett Johnson and Jake Helbig completed the first half of that task when they won a riveting 7-6, 7-6 match against Jake Sharp and Lucas Stark at third doubles.

The win put the match at 3-3 and it came down to Devin Quam and Carl Fisk against Matt Billings and Tyler Reisetter at second singles.

The Vikes were already at a little disadvantage in the match, however, because Fisk normally plays singles for the Vikes.

After dropping the first set 6-4, Quam and Fisk started playing more aggressively and finding their spots. They blasted through the second and third sets, winning 6-3, 6-1 to complete the comeback for North Branch and pull out a big victory over the Saints.

Cambridge-Isanti 6, North Branch 1

The Vikings were back to their struggling ways, though, when they took on Highway 95 rival Cambridge-Isanti to cap off their busy week.

Sonnenfeld and Johnson moved to 2-1 on the week, gaining North Branch's only point in a 6-1, 4-6, 6-1 win.

The singles players for North Branch really struggled, as the Lambrecht brothers were the only competitors to score over one point in any set. Nick lost 4-6, 4-6 and Zak lost 0-6, 3-6.

At third doubles, Brett Johnson and Jake Helbig had a competitive shootout with Matt Olson and Nate Henderson of C-I. After Johnson and Helbig earned the first set victory at 6-2, they dropped the next two 3-6, 3-6 to give the Bluejackets the point and the 6-1 victor.

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