By Steve Morris

The Tartan Titans made a layup 52 seconds into the game and never looked back as they cruised to a 59-37 win against the North Branch Vikings on Dec. 11 in a non-conference game.

The Vikings were playing without senior Jake Chambers who had an emergency appendectomy on Monday. He is expected to miss a month or more. Head coach Bill Buamann acknowledge the setback but said he is not ready to make excuses for the loss.

"We said all year there will be no excuses. We have to worry about what we can control and not worry about what we can't control. We can control our effort and I feel we played with extreme effort," he said.

No Viking player was able to reach double digits in points. Newcomer Kyle Grote led the team with seven points on two of four from the floor and Mike Dahl dished out four assists in the loss.

What seemed to hurt North Branch was the amount of turnovers committed. In all, they had 18 turnovers that Tartan converted to easy baskets. For the game, Tartan had 26 points off of turnovers.
Baumann acknowledged his team played hard against Tartan.

"I was extremely pleased with our effort. We came out at the beginning and took Tartan's best shot and then played with them for most of the first half," he said.

North Branch 18 19
Tartan 31 28

Ryan Norman 5 pts, Deon Farr 5 pts, Kyle Grote 7 pts, John Lindstrom 5 pts, Dan Ginal 5 pts, Kirk Dale 5 pts, Mike Dahl 5 pts