Hot shooting leads Vikings over Wildcats

Jon Blomquist smiled from ear to ear as he watched the clock tick down to zero against the Chisago Lakes boys basketball team on Friday, Jan. 4. The North Branch senior had scored seven points and played tough defense throughout the game as the Vikings topped county rival Chisago Lakes 59-51. “It feels like we have been working towards this game for the past eight months,” North Branch head coach David Anderson said.

“I am very proud of our guys for how they played tonight and the progress that they have made throughout this season.” North Branch was able to get the victory on the strength of their first half. As the game begin, Chisago Lakes quickly established themselves by going up 9-3. The Vikings, who are primarily a jump-shooting team, calmy started to make their outside shots, though. And coupled with some dirty work by Brandon Thauwald, they started to build a lead. At the same time, the North Branch defense began to lock down Chisago’s offensive game. Wildcats’ big man Clay Houfer was constantly double-teamed when he got the ball down low and the Wildcats only scored 11 more points over the last 13 minutes of the first half. The Vikings’ offensive game was led by junior guard Travis VanElsberg.

He’s been a scoring machine this year and Friday was no different. He put the ball in the basket in a variety of ways, popping up for three point shots and also driving the lane and finishing easy buckets. However, Chisago Lakes grabbed a couple of late buckets and the halftime lead for North Branch was nine. “We didn't feel great going into halftime with a nine point lead because we missed so many layups in the first half we felt like we should have been up by at least 20 points,” Anderson said. “We knew that we left the door open for a dangerous Chisago team to make a run in the second half.” The Wildcats did just that in the second half. The two teams jockeyed for position in the first 10 minutes, and North Branch kept their lead around eight to 10 points. But, with about six minutes left, Chisago Lakes went on a run backed by some big shots from Quinton Lee and Jake Lindquist. With two minutes left, the Wildcats had trimmed the lead to two and were in position to seize the game.

The crowd was boisterously backing them and all the energy seemed to be with the guys in green. However, Thauwald scored on a putback to stretch the lead to four and then a careless pass by the Wildcats turned into an easy fast break lay up for North Branch and the lead quickly ballooned back to six points. North Branch’s calm approach to the last two minutes of the game was a contrast to their usual herky-jerky run and shoot offense and it helped them pull away with the 59-51 victory. Anderson praised his team’s defense, specifically Thauwald, who was giving up six inches and almost 40 pounds to Houfer. “The key to the game was our defensive play and Brandon Thauwald was undoubtedly our star. He played unbelievably well against Houfer, almost completely taking him out of the game and holding him to just two field goals,” Anderson said.

“We knew they liked to try to pound the ball inside the paint to Houfer and if we took that aspect away, it would take them out of what they wanted to do. We also had great help side defense when they did get deep penetration and that is a credit to our wing players Jon Blomquist, Dylan Dahle, Isaac Lewis, and Dillon Harms who all played great on the defensive end of the floor.” VanElsberg was the high scorer for the game, netting 21 points in the victory. Thauwald added a tough 10 points despite concentrating most of his energy on defending Houfer. For the ‘Cats, Houfer and Vinnie Gorski, who suffered a mild leg injury after taking a rough fall near the end of the first half, each scored 10 points. “This win will hopefully give us the confidence to know that we can play and compete with any team in our conference, we have a big next two weeks with several of the top teams in the conference coming up to North Branch,” Anderson said. “We will try to use this win to springboard us forward as we take on the rest of our schedule.”