---

Chisago Lakes 57, Robbinsdale Cooper 44

As Head Coach Craig Walker put it, when a basketball team loses five seniors to graduation, including the top two scorers and rebounders, the first game of the season can be a mystery. It can answer a lot of questions, or it can create more questions.

Consider this question answered for now.

Freshman Whitney Tinjum led the new-look Wildcats on the floor with a career-high 25 points and 16 rebounds. Her play was a fresh look at the next big thing in Chisago Lakes basketball.

The 'Cats built a nine-point lead by halftime, and didn't look back as they continued to pressure the Hawks throughout the second half for the 13 point win.

Junior Summer Young had a shaky start to her season, but she settled down and played some solid offense, scoring six points and dishing out three assists.

"We have a lot of work to do offensively in our half court," Walker said. "We have to move without the basketball and play better team offense. But, our transition game is exciting." Walker said the turning point of the game was a fast break that was created when Hannah Trandahl was beat on defense by Ogris, but she recovered to steal the ball and made a half-court pass to Tinjum, who was already streaking to the Cooper hoop for an easy two.

One of the key elements to the game was Chisago Lakes' ability to get to the free-throw line. The 'Cats shot 28 free throw, converting 18 of them. Walker noted that getting to the free throw line is very impotant and that he thought they did a good job at it against Cooper.

Chisago Lakes was also aided by some stellar defense from the Trandahl sisters. In their man-to-man defense, the girls were assigned to guard Cooper's best player, Capriece Ogris. The siblings limited Ogris to four points on the night, which is over 10 points off of her average from last year.

"Our man-to-man defense needs work and is a big question mark at this point," Walker said cautiously. "I thought we pressed well in man and some of the player combinations in our zone looked good, though. As a young team, we'll take the conference win and work more to improve our offense and defense."

Chisago Lakes 61, St. Louis Park 59

This time, the question was whether or not the girls could come back from an early deficit.

Consider this game another question answered for the Wildcats.

"This game ended up being a barn burner after it looked like we might get ran off the court early," Walker said.

The girls came out unorganized and disoriented against an always-tough St. Louis Park Orioles squad. The Wildcats trailed by as many as 14 at one point, and they went into halftime trailing by 10 points. "We didn't play as a team much at all in the first half," Walker explained.

In the second half, Walker had his charges make a few adjustments to clamp down on rest of St. Louis Park.

Coming into the game, Walker's main focus was to shut down the Orioles scoring machine, Kika Greenlee. "We game planned to make her work all night by putting our quicker defenders on her at all times and make the other players beat us. And in the first half, they were."

He said that at halftime, they spoke about what they could do to improve their offensive game, and keep Greenlee and Company out of their side of the court. "We continued to attack them on the drive and got to the free throw line 21 times in the second half," he said. The girls shot 35 total free throws on the night.

The fact that the Orioles' shooters finally cooled off was a big help to the Wildcats also.

With the deficit down to only five points with 5:30 left in the game, the fire alarms went off in the high school had to be evacuted for a short period of time.

The break helped the Wildcats, as they kept chipping away at the lead after play resumed. After a Young lay up and two Tinjum baskets, the Wildcats enjoyed a three-point lead over the visiting Orioles with under a minute left.

Greenlee, however, proved that she belongs among the elite ball players in the state when she drove the length of the floor, pulled up three feet shy of the three point line and drained the shot to tie the contest at 59.

Not to be outdone, on the Wildcats ensuing possession, Young launched up a three pointer that clanked out of the hoop, but the reliable freshman Tinjum was there, waiting for the offensive rebound. She was fouled with just seconds remaining in a tie game.

Tinjum was as cool as the weather was outside as she approached the line, dribbled, and promptly sunk both free throws to paint the Orioles into a corner with a 61-59 lead.

Greenlee again drove the length of the floor, but she missed the off-balance jumper this time. But, in an unlucky turn of events, the ball bounced right to a n Oriole, who was fouled with two seconds left.

The girl just didn't have the cool demeanor that Tinjum did, and she stepped up and missed both free throws to give the game to the 'Cats, On the missed shot, Tinjum grabbed the rebound to set a new school record at 22 boards. The record looked nice next to her 27 points and the Wildcat win.

"Our girls showed a lot of determination and maturity tonight in only our second game of the season," Walker said. "But, we didn't rebound very weel defensively, and at time some of us played lackluster defense and we committed 27 fouls."

But, the Wildcats managed to overcome the errors and move to 2-0 in the North Suburban Conference. A big help in the win was the fact that the Wildcats only committed 12 turnovers and made it to the line 35 times.

"Sometimes, coaches wonder how their teams will do in crunch time with the game on the line,"Walker explained. "And when you're as young as we are, with as many new faces in the varisty lineup, it's expecially true this season. Our girls for the most part didn't panic at the end and did the things that were working to get us the lead and regain the lead in the end."

Tinjum ended the game with 27 points and 22 boards and his averaging 26 points and 19 rebounds throughout the first two games of the year.

Young added 10 key points and Cassie Trandahl had nine points. Amanda Sylla added seven points for the Wildcats in the winning effort.

For her efforts in the two early games, Tinjum earned Pioneer Press Player of the Week honors. It's the first time ever that two Chisago Lakes' athletes have been selected for the award in the same week. Senior boys basktball player Josh Figini earned the honors for his 46 points, 24 rebound performance in a double overtime victory over Princeton last week.

The early show of strength was vital, as the girls travel to Totino Grace tonight to face the defending Class AAA champion Totino Grace Eagles at 7:15. "We have a lot fo improving to do, especially defensively, if we want to compete with the top teams in the state."

---