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Last week, senior Kendra Norman became the sixth girl in the history of North Branch girls basketball to score 1,000 points.

She also set a school record of three point shots made. Norman now holds that record with 102 three point baskets made.

And to top that, Norman tied her career high single game in scoring with 27 points in a win over Spring Lake Park. "Kendra is our best player and it was a great week for a great player," Head Coach Dan Schindler said of his longtime guard. "Kendra is one of those special players that every coach would like to have. She works so hard and its great to see all her hard work paying off. We are very fortunate to have her in our program."

Norman also leads the teams in steals and assists and is third in rebounding.

St. Louis Park 35, North Branch 33

Despite holding a six-point lead at halftime, the North Branch squad just couldn't hold on for a win against the St. Louis Park Orioles early last week.

"This was a game where we had so many chances to win, but didn't get the job done. The main culprit was our poor shooting," Schindler explained. "We had many easy shots in the first half and we just missed them. Those easy misses came back to haunt us in the end. We also missed nine free throws. It was a good game but if we make some of those easy shots we missed, we get the win."

In the low-scoring first half, North Branch outpaced St. Louis Park 18-12, with their defense playing air tight against the Orioles.

In the second half, the Vikings defense was still there, but there offense struggled even more, netting only 15 points as they helplessly watching St. Louis Park crawl back into the game and eventually, the lead.

"Right now we just need to play more consistent basketball on the offensive end and we need to learn every possession is important," Schindler said after his team's loss.

Norman led the way with 13 points and Emily Trunk added eight points in the effort.

North Branch 58, Spring Lake Park 44

North Branch was looking for some sweet revenge against the Panthers after their huge come-from-behind one point victory over the Vikes' earlier this year.

They got off on the right foot, dominating most of the first half on the offensive and defensive ends. By the time the teams went into the locker room, North Branch had a nine-point advantage at 33-24.

But, that didn't mean much, as the Vikings had led by almost 20 at halftime in their previous meeting with SLP, and they still lost that game.

"We played a very good first half, but we stressed at halftime that our great first half didn't mean anything unless we followed it up with a great second half," Schindler said. " And we did that. We scored the first four points in the second half and really had the game in control the whole way."

Schindler went on to say that the big difference in the game was the play of Norman. She controlled the game for North Branch on both ends of the floor, and ended up with 27 points, despite Spring Lake Park featuring two girls that were over 6'2" trying to guard her.

Another big change from the St. Louis Park game was the Vikes' ability to hit the open shot. They made 50 percent of their chances in this game, and Spring Lake Park couldn't match it.

Norman had a game-high 27 points, Sarah Lekson added 14 points and eight rebounds and Trunk had seven points in the win.

"With the injury to Haley Huset, I felt Emily has come in and played well for us," Schindler said. "Kallie Grote also is giving us some good minutes as well as Erin Reber. So hopefully we can put all this together the rest of the way."

Benilde-St. Margaret's 61, North Branch 45

Despite the 16-point gap in score, Schindler noted that this game was much closer than the final score showed.

The Vikings actually led for a lot of the first half, but they had a bad stretch at the end of it that did them in and put them down by nine points going into halftime at 30-21. "We knew what a tough assignment we had traveling to their gym," Schindler said. "But we came out ready and led most of the first half."

In the second half, things stayed interesting as North Branch hung around. With only seven minutes left, North Branch trailed 45-39 and were poised to make a move. Although, when they tried to open their offense up, Benilde put the pedal to the medal and came with their firepower. In the end, Benilde's scorers got the best of North Branch's defense.

"I thought our girls really played hard and I was very proud of the effort," Schindler said.

As noted, early in the game Norman scored her 1,000th point and she also broke the school three point scoring record. "Kendra is a great player and had another great game," Schindler said after Norman scored 16 points.

Lekson added nine points and both Grote and Chelsea Tollberg had seven points. "Chelsea Tollberg doesn't always have flashy stats," Schindler said, "But she always works hard and played a nice game for us."

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