By Steve Morris

The Totino-Grace Eagles quickly halted any momentum the North Branch girls basketball team was carrying over from its successful holiday tournament.

On Jan. 3, the Vikings never posed a threat and lost 51-19. At halftime, the girls managed five points.

"When you're down that much at halftime the only thing you can do is treat the second half like a scrimmage and go out and work on things," head coach Dan Schindler said.

North Branch's offense was unable to get off the ground for much of the game. Megan Scherer and Ashley Johnson led the team with six points, while senior Kristen Robatcek was held scoreless.

"A good basketball team can quickly point out your weaknesses and Totino did that to us. We have struggled scoring all year and started out by missing our first nine shots and a couple of them were easy ones we shouldn't miss," Schindler said.

Schindler also pointed out that the girls quickly became frustrated in the first half, which lead to hurried shots and bad shot selection.

Duluth Denfeld

Winning has a funny way of making long drives seem more enjoyable.

That may have been the case for the Vikings as they beat the Duluth Denfeld Hunters in Duluth Jan. 5, 54-35. It was a good way for the girls to get the sour taste from their mouths after a big lose to Totino-Grace.

"I was glad we had another game right away to help us forget about the Totino one," Schindler said. "I think we learned from our Totino game and it was nice to see us be able to do some nice things versus Denfeld and come home with a win."

Robatcek was all over the court and finished with nine steals and eight points. Senior Kristen Kaminski had her best performance of the season, scoring 12 points.

Schindler was quick to praise Kaminski's play in the Denfeld game.

"Kristen is a good shooter and we need her to look to be more offensive minded for us," he said.

Senior post Ashley Johnson led the team with 13 points.

After starting the season 0-7, the girls have gone 3-3 in their last six games, which proves to Schindler his girls are getting more comfortable playing at the varsity level.

"We our hoping with a little more home cooking and some girls starting to get more comfortable in a varsity game we can have a better second half of the year on the scoreboard," he said.

Totino Grace 35 16 51
North Branch 5 14 19

Jessica Audette 3 , Kendra Norman 2, Megan Scherer 6, Amanda Sylla 2, Ashley Johnson 6

North Branch 29 25 54
Duluth Denfeld 20 15 35

Kristen Robatcek 8, 9 steals, Kristen Kaminski 12, Kendra Norman 2, Megan Scherer 4, Rebecca Collins 3, Amanda Sylla 12, Ashley Johnson 13