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In last week's County Press, we ran through numbers 10 through six of the top 10 sports stories of the year, this week, the top five on the list are unveiled.

5. Area wrestlers perform well at state tournament in St. Paul

Chisago Lakes' Kyle Schoenecker, Quade Zupko, Travis Kammerer, Jake Nase and Dylant Hoyt and North Branch's Jake Kostik and Patrick Mork all qualified for the state tournament at the XCel Energy Center in St. Paul in February.

Both Nase and Schoenecker were surprise qualifiers for Chisago Lakes, but they were nevertheless part of a huge contingent of Chisago County grapplers heading south.

Five of the seven, inlcluding Zupko, Kammerer, Hoyt, Nase and Kostik, won their opening round match ups to advance in the tournament.

Hoyt had the most thrilling match, bar none, in the opening round. He went to triple overtime against Ben Goodrich, winning 6-4.

Despite the wrestlers boatload of success in the first round, they mostly struggled from there on out. Hoyt, Nase, Kammerer and Zupko all lost their second round matches, and none of them were able to make the grueling trip back through wrestlebacks to earn a place on the podium.

Kostik was the only member of the fleet to keep moving on. He finished third at state last year, and in his fourth trip, he was hoping to make that last step to immortality as a Minnesota state champion. Instead, Kostik drew eventual state champion Matt Nelson of Big Lake in the second round and dropped a tough match,

Kostik navigated his way through wrestlebacks, though, and was able to earn a fifth place finish in an extremely tough weight class.

4. Whitney Tinjum breaks Chisago Lakes scoring record in basketball as a junior

There's not much Whitney Tinjum hasn't done in her three years as a starter for the Chisago Lakes girls basketball team.

She's made All-State, All-North Suburban Conference, led the NSC in scoring, carried the team to multiple high seeds in sections.

This past year though, as a junior, she finally climbed atop the list of most prolific scorers in Chisago Lakes basketball history.

In a 68-48 loss to Benilde-St. Margaret's late in the season, Tinjum needed just 12 points to break Kari Schmidt's record of 1,654 career points. And with a career average well over 20 points, 12 wasn't going to be a problem.

Tinjum bested the record midway through the game, and she only added on to it as the season wore on. And now, she still has a full year of varsity action left as a senior in the class of 2012.

Although the recruiting battle for her has simmered down a lot since she made a verbal commitment to the University of Wisconsin, plenty of interest will be sure to spark up again as Tinjum heads into her final stretch of an illustrious high school career at Chisago Lakes.

3. Brogan Lee earns two medals at the girls swimming and diving state tournament

Although Brogan Lee was a double-medalist last year, she improved her times in both and moved up a notch to close out her Chisago Lakes high school career with five state tournament medals.

This year, Brogan moved up to fourth in the 200 freestyle, swimming her preliminary race in 1:55.02, and then losing just a hint of time in her finals race, going 1:55.22. Both were phenomenal times, and she was bested only by some of the best swimmers in the state in Marisa Wood of Sartell-St. Stephen, Danielle Nack of Mankato West and Ashley Drazkowski of Monticello.

The main event for Brogan was the 500 freestyle. Although it was not likely that Brogan would win a state title -- Wood holds every important record in the 500 and is only a sophomore -- she wasn't far off after all the waves calmed.

Going into the state tournament, Brogan's goal was to finish under five minutes in the event, and after prelims, she was well on her way.

She finished the prelims in 5:02.44 as she earned the third seed behind Wood and Nack, but Wood only bested her by three seconds and Nack by one.

In the finals, it quickly turned into a three-horse race between Wood, Nack and Brogan. Although Brogan was in third in that race within the race, she wasn't backing down from the two.

Wood repeated, winning the state title again. Nack came in second place, finishing in 4:58.82, which just barely edged out Brogan, who finished in 4:59.42 after a late surge.

Brogan and her sister Thomi Lee were the first girls in Chisago Lakes history to swim in four events at the state tournament -- as they both qualified in the 200 freestyle, 400 freestyle, and as part of the 200 freestyle relay and 400 freestyle relay teams.

"It has been just awesome having a girl like Brogan in the program," Head Coach Ed Wakefield said at the time. "A lot of the younger girls look up to her. She's the first one in the pool and is always busting her butt and swimming hard."

2. Cory Lushanko grabs two third place medals at the track and field state tournament

Inspired, he said, by a visit from a family friend, Chisago Lakes track senior Cory Lushanko put on the best performance of his career at the Class AA state tournament finals on Saturday, June 11 at Hamline University in St. Paul. In very tight races, Lushanko came up with third place finishes in both the 100 meter dash and 200 meter dash.

Lushanko headed home after the midday preliminaries on Friday, June 10, to rest up for the big races on Saturday. Family friend Steve Sargeant, a sports coach and program organizer in the Chisago Lakes area, stopped by later Friday afternoon to give Lushanko some advice and encouragement. "Then he told me he couldn't make it to Saturday's final," said Lushanko, "so I had better run the races for him. So I decided to dedicate my performances to Steve."

The inspired Lushanko finished third in the 100 meter dash with a time of 11.22 seconds, just 5/100 of a second or half a foot behind state champion Avuk Tambe of Blaine, who clocked in at a blazing 11.17 seconds. A photo finish, courtesy of the latest laser technology, put Lushanko 1/100 of a second behind the second place finisher Anthony Gustafson of Faribault, who was timed at 11.21 seconds. Lushanko said "The race went better than I had thought it would. I was surrounded by good athletes. It was nervous to be in but it was probably a fun race to watch."

Lushanko was no slouch in the 200 meter dash, either. His time of 22.54 seconds was just a stride away from first place finisher Gustafson, who came in at 22.25 seconds, and half a stride from conference foe Dontay Matthews of St. Francis, who finished in 22.40 seconds.

Lushanko, a three-sport star who showed off his speed in both hockey and football, gave up baseball after his freshman year to play spring hockey and decided to come out for track his senior year. And he proved to anyone who was paying attention that he was one of the fastest three high school athletes in the state of Minnesota.

1. Chisago Lakes girls soccer stuns the state with a 1-0 upset over top-ranked Benilde-St. Margaret's in the first round of the state tourney

Behind junior Ashlee Ricci's first varsity goal, the Wildcats shocked the world of Minnesota soccer by beating top-seeded, number one ranked Benilde-St. Margaret's 1-0 in the opening round of the girls' Class A state high school soccer tournament Thursday, October 28, 2010 at Hopkins High School. It was the signature win for a program that has shown great improvement since Chris Haggerty took over as varsity coach four years ago.

And the Wildcats' big victory came without the presence of Haggerty. Haggerty had a long-planned commitment that he could not change. Assistant coach Barry Hindt took over for the Benilde game and the well-trained Wildcats didn't seem to miss a beat.

Neither team scored in a back and forth first half. Wildcat senior goalkeeper Mary Burch made sure of it when she barely beat a Benilde forward to a thru ball and knocked it away with just a few minutes left in the half. Benilde ramped up the pressure to open the second half. Just over ten minutes into the half, Burch leaped high make a great save on a high shot. The Wildcats immediately counterattacked. After Burch's punt, the Wildcats got the ball to star forward Cassie Trandahl near midfield. She made a nice run through the Benilde zone, weaving through several defensive players. She crossed the 18 yard line at the top of the box with two defenders closing in and the Red Knight keeper coming out to challenge her. The defenders knocked Trandahl over and the ball popped a few feet behind her and to the right. Ricci, following the play, one-timed it over the keeper's head and into the back of the net to give the Wildcats a 1-0 lead.

The Red Knights again turned up the pressure. But seemingly panicked, they shot from too far out and their shots either missed the net or sailed right into Burch's arms. Benilde's best scoring opportunity came in the 71st minute. A wide open player took a hard shot from the top of the box. The ball went just over the fingertips of a leaping Burch and, fortunately, just over the crossbar.

The Wildcats controlled play through the rest of the game, having to deal with a few harmless deep balls form the Red Knights. When the final buzzer went off, pandemonium ensued as over 100 Wildcat student fans rushed the field to celebrate with the players. After the field had cleared and the teams had shaken hands, the Wildcats were still ebullient. The Benilde players weren't crying as they walked away. Instead, they had stunned looks on their faces.

A few days later, the Wildcats lost to Rogers 1-0 in the semifinals, ending their state tournament run. While that loss was certainly disappointing, the players, coaches and fans will all remember fondly knocking off the state's number on team in the state tournament.

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