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There were plenty of surprises throughout the night as the Chisago Lakes swimming and diving team jockeyed into position to try and topple the mighty Irondale Knights on Thursday, Sept. 18.

The Wildcats traveled down to Irondale in New Brighton to take on the Knights, and the results were closer than most imagined against the North Suburban powerhouse.

"We had a great meet," said Head Coach Ed Wakefield. "We made changes during the meet to try to match up against what they were swimming."

The meet started out with a second place finish in the 200-yard medley relay by Mallory Schneider, Sarah Kopp, Anna Stein and Araya Gamble.

In the 200-yard freestyle, Brogan Lee got the first of her three first place finishes on the day. Her time of 2:02.18 blew the rest of the field out of the water, with second place coming in at 2:09.17.

In the 200-yard individual medley, Anna Stein took third place with a time of 2:02.38. At that point, the Knights were already starting to build a formidable lead at 18-8, and it was looking like it might be a tough day for the Wildcats.

Heidi Willhite and Gamble placed second and third in the 50-yard freestyle, splitting up the eight points with Irondale, as their star swimmer Breanna Loeschke placed first.

The Wildcats pulled within four points after Alex Thomsen and Cassie Schlegel went one-two in the diving portion. Thomsen won the event with a 156.25, and Schlegel was not far behind with a 140.70. "The divers did a great job, and really helped with the comeback," Wakefield noted.

There was a slight glitch for the Wildcats, however. In the very enxt event after cutting the lead to four, the Knights went one-two in the 100-yard butterfly and pushed their lead back up to 10. Amanda Bean salvaged a third place finish for the 'Cats with a time of 1:15.60.

In Wakefield's manuevering, he decided to try out Thomsen, who is primarily a diver, at the 100-meter freestyle. With Loeschke swimming in the event, he pulled Willhite out and moved her to the 100-yard backstroke, since Loeschke couldn't swim any more individual events.

Thomsen, who swam the freestyle event last year, came within four-tenths of a second of making the move pure genius.

Loeschke won the event as expected, and Hannah Lee earned a second place finish with a time of 1:01.34. In the heated battle for the critical third place points, Irondale's Colleen Christopherson came in at 1:02.43, and Thomsen came in at 1:02.8.

The first and third place finishes for Irondale stretched their lead to 12, and took a lot of wind out of the Wildcats comeback hopes.

But, the Lee sisters teamed up to kick start the comeback hopes back into gear. In the 500-yard freestyle, Brogan Lee won with a time of 5:34.45, and Thomi Lee came in second with a time of 6:04.35. The 7-1 score in that event cut the lead from 35-23 to 36-30.

"Thomi had a great swim to come back and catch the Irondale girls to take second place," Wakefield said. "She swam a really smart race."

"Brogan showed a lot of heart towards her team. We agreed that she should swim the 500 to win it, but not swim it her fastest, as we knew that they had no one to compete with her," said Wakefield. "The strategy was for Brogan to have more left for the realys and I think she did. Every little thing helped."

In the 200-yard freestyle relay, the Wildcats again struggled to keep their momentum going in the comeback. Willhite, Amanda Bean, Hannah Lee and Brogan Lee teamed up for a second place finish in the event, but Irondale took first and third to put the deficit back at 10 for the Wildcats.

Chisago Lakes' final push came in the last three events. Willhite won the 100-yard backstroke that she had been moved to in a time of 1:10.48. Schneider got the third place points with a time of 1:16.51. "Mallory's race was really big. She was ill all week long, but she really wanted to swim the [100-yard backstroke]," Wakefield said. "Even being really sick, she went two seconds faster than she had gone all season to take third place. She wasn't even far off of second place."

The first and third finish cut the lead to eight going into the 100-yard breaststroke. The 'Cats had a thrilling finish in the race that left no margin for error by either team.

Kopp earned first place in the event with a 1.20.61. Second place went to Amanda Wielinski of Irondale with a time of 1:20.72, and third place went to Bailey Strand in 1:20.94. Thirty-three-hundreths of a second was the deciding time between first and third place.

"Kopp and Strand going one, three in the breast kept the comeback going," Wakefield pointed out. "Sarah has had a bad shoulder and is barely swimming a workout so this race really hurt. But, she swam great. And Bailey cut almost three seconds off of her best time and darn near took second place."

The points the pair earned shaved the lead down to six, and gave the Wildcats a chance to win the meet in the last event. They'd need a one-two finish in the 400-yard freestyle to take the meet. "We knew we could get the win, but second was a long shot," Wakefield explained. "We moved a couple relay kids around to try to even them out a bit."

The move nearly paid off as the team of Gamble, Bean, Willhite and Brogan Lee won the event with a time of 4:04.22.

The other relay team, however, could not catch up to Irondale's top team. The Knights quartet finished the race in 4:07.15, and the Wildcats second team finished in 4:12.68. "We made a real bid, but we came up just short," said Wakefield.

The first and third place points gained the 'Cats four points, but it wasn't enough to make up the deficit as they lost 52-50. "This was such a great meet even though we lost it," Wakefield stated. "Irondale has been one of the swimming powerhouses in the North Suburbam Conference and we swam head-to-head with them."

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