Cloquet Boys Come Up Short Against North Branch

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Feb 11, 2012

Dwight Cadwell-NSO

The Cloquet Lumberjacks lost a sectional matchup Saturday night to the North Branch Vikings by a score of 66-57 at North Branch High School. The Vikings, who had lost 13 straight games, also pick up their first section win of the season.

Cloquet was looking to pick up their second sectional win of the season, saw themselves fall behind early in the first half as the Vikings caught fire and were hitting long range 3-pointers, which gave the Vikings a seven point lead at halftime.

North Branch connected on six 3-pointers in the first half and Cloquet was 0-8. North Branch connected on 42% of their shots in the first half while Cloquet could only hit 30% from the floor. The Lumberjacks were perfect in the first half from the free throw line however, which kept them in the game at half.

The second half saw the Lumberjacks go on an 8-0 run early in the second half as Zach Peterson hit two 3-pointers to cut the lead to one point at 37-36. The Vikings then went on their own 19-4 run and created a 16 point lead with five minutes to play in the second half.

The Lumberjacks were led by Adam Laine, who finished with 20 points while also grabbing 10 rebounds on the night. Dillon Johnson added 11, Trent Moe finished with 10, Peterson finished with 9, Gavin Takkunen chipped in with 3, Jake Bushey and Erik Swanson both ended with 2 points in the Lumberjacks loss.

The Vikings were led by Travis VanElsberg, who scored 21 points. Tom Kinsella added 16, while Tyler Knobbe added 15. Both Knobbe and Kinsella each hit four three-pointers for the Vikings. The rest of the North Branch scoring was Brandon Thauwald with 7 points and Isaac Lewis who finished with 6 points on the night.

The Lumberjacks fall to 7-13 on the season and they are back in action again on Tuesday night when they will face the Esko Eskomos in a non-conference contest at Esko High School. On Thursday night they will have another non-conference game, this one against Duluth East at East High School.

The Viking picked up their fourth win of the season on Saturday to go along with 13 losses overall. North Branch will be home on Tuesday night when they host St. Francis and on Friday they travel to the cites to face Totino-Grace.

Dwight Cadwell can be reached at dwight@northlandsportsonline.com