---

Chisago Lakes 6, North Branch 1

The Wildcat-Viking rivalry has been pretty heated in the past few years in tennis.

Neither team had the chops to be conference contenders, but they played each other well, and it usually came down to the last match or two.

The Wildcats made sure this annual meeting was much different.

With an influx of talent on their team the Wildcats steamrolled their conference rival on almost all fronts.

The talent disparity was the biggest in the doubles matches. At first doubles, first-year players David Rau and Brett Lizotte burned through Brandon Johnson and Brett Johnson en route to a 6-0, 6-1 win.

At second doubles, North Branch's Devon Quam and Tanner Cosgrove had a hard time keeping up with the CL tandem of Brian Hynes and Brian Erickson. Hynes and Erickson had the huge experience edge over their North Branch counterparts, as the two played together most of last year in the first doubles spot.

At third doubles, CL's Jared Rectenwal and Ben Stanghelle swept North Branch's Jake Helbig and James Streleckia, 6-0, 6-0.

Two of the singles matches were similar stories, too. At second singles, Wildcat Vinnie Gorski buzzed through Brandon Sonnenfeld, winning 6-2, 6-2 in a quick match.

At fourth singles, Cameron Bouwens, who has played all over on the 'Cats this year, overwhelmed North Branch's John Jakubowski, who has played strictly fourth singles so far. Bouwens came off the court with a 6-0, 6-2 win.

The sixth and final point for Chisago Lakes came when Hogan Haas downed Carl Fisk at third singles. Haas breezed through the first set, winning 6-1, and it looked like he might be one of the first guys off the court. Fisk, however, battled back in the second set to push it to tiebreaker at 6-6. Towards the end of the match, Fisk rolled his ankle and had to take a brief pause from the match, and he didn't seem the same the rest of the way. Haas downed him in the second set tiebreaker by a score of 7-3, and Chisago Lakes was one point away from the sweep.

Although senior Nick Lambrecht knew the Vikes weren't in contention, he played for pride in his first singles match against eighth grader Joe Turnquist.

Lambrecht earned a pretty quick first set win, downing his less experienced opponent 6-3 in the opener. Then, Turnquist settled down and started playing a masterful defensive game.

His volleys seemed to frustrate Lambrecht, as not much was getting past the fleet-footed eighth grader. Although he lacked a strong offensive attack, things went his way in the second set as he earned a tiebreaker with Lambrecht and won it 7-1 to even the match at one set each.

In the third set of a seemingly endless game that featured numerous long, grueling volleys, Lambrecht dug deep to earn at least one team point for North Branch when he won 6-2.

The match was a struggle for both parties, and at one point, both the Vikings and Wildcats were exchanging cheers as each competitor made or missed a shot.

In the end, Lambrecht's aggressiveness and experience came out on top over Turnquist's pinpoint defense and quick movements.

"Chisago Lakes has a very good team this year, and it showed," North Branch Head Coach Chad Brusky said. "It was a big test for us in the conference."

---