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After being unceremoniously un-invited to the Virginia Invitational to begin the season, the Chisago Lakes ski team has had no trouble finding opponents to test their mettle against.

Head Coach Dan Raedeke said he wasn't sure why his squad, along with Centennial, weren't welcome at the invite this year, but the 'Cats were able to make the best of the situation, calling up Forest Lake to have a friendly meet between the two teams that share Wild Mountain.

Conference meet

After the dust-up to begin the season, the ski team got down to business, hosting the first conference meet of the year.

In both the girls and the boys races, Chisago Lakes individual skiers populated the top of the standings, but the Centennial Cougars proved to have too much depth for the Wildcats to deal with.

In the boys half, Phillip Bottjen took the top spot, and Joe Cartier and  Corbin Peterson were back-to-back in third and fourth place. Jake Sandgren also squeezed into the top 10, finishing in 10th place.

Brandon Marvin and Mark Sandgren also provided quality scores for Chisago Lakes, finishing 24th and 25th, respectively.

But, Centennial had more depth and started to pass the Wildcats, and eventually scored 596 points to Chisago Lakes' 461.

In the girls portion, Simone Raedeke and Katy Garbe went one-two in th event, and Amanda Angel wasn't far behind in fourth, but again, the Cougars flaunted their depth and scored 611 points to CL's 513.

Chisago Lakes Invite

The Wildcats got their revenge a few days later at Wild Mountain. Well, at least the girls did. In the 29-team meet, the girls finished at the top of the scrap heap behind a third place finish from Raedeke, a sixth place finish from Garbe and a 13th place finish from Angel.

Besides the top 15 finishes from the trio of Wildcats, there were other contributors to their success. Teresa Sandberg finished in 34th place with a combined time of 73.20 seconds.

Not far behind, Araya Gamble finished in 52nd place with a time of 76.36. Although she was a little more than three seconds behind Sandberg, the gap dropped Gamble so far because of the massive number of skiers that competed at the meet.

Katherine Rayer rounded out the varsity girls with an 88th place finish with a combined time of 86.85.

The combined total for the six girls was 576, which edged Minnehaha Academy by only seven points for the overall title. Stillwater and Bloomington Jefferson finished in third and fourth, respectively, only six points off of the Wildcats' pace.

Boys race

The boys team was marred by untimely falls and tough breaks in the invite.

The first skier up for the Wildcats didn't disappoint, as captain Phillip Bottjen sped through the course en route to a 12th place finish in the 163-person field. His combined time of 64.57 was only six seconds off of the top pace set by Hopkins' Peter Rolshus.

Steven Wagner also had an impressive race, finishing in 20th place with a combined time of 66.16.

Only those two made it down the course unscathed. The other four skiers all had trouble at some point in the icy course.

Corbin Peterson found himself among the top skiers after his first run at 33.39, but a slip-up in the second run left him with a 39.64 and a 71st place finish with a time of 73.03.

For the other three Wildcats, disaster struck in more than just a slip-up. One of the top green-and-gold skiers, Joe Cartier, skied a quick 32.15 in his first run, and had himself in position to do big things for the boys, but in his second run, he stumbled to a 51.92 and 123rd place.

Mark Sandgren had the same result in opposite order, lost control half way down the hill and spiraled past a pole and had to climb his way back up to go around. The miscue cost him over 15 seconds, as he finished with a 50.29 in the first run. His second run went better, as he raced to a 34.35 for a combined total of 84.64 in 128th place.

Jacob Sandgren had the biggest fall of all of them in the first round. He was well on his way to a solid time, and in the same spot that Mark lost his footing, Jacob did too and rolled out of control past the pole. He lost a ski, but kept one on to avoid the disqualification. He still managed to clock in at just under a minute at 58.91 seconds, but the damage had been done. His second run went well, clocking in at 36.73, but it wasn't enough to get him higher than 144th.

After the extended break, the team hits the slopes again on Thursday, Jan. 8 at Trollhaugen to take on the Centennial and the rest of the conference again.

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