Wildcats upset by Spring Lake Park

Chisago Lakes 91, Totino Grace 87 The Wildcats’ swimming and diving team started their season off in the right way against the Totino-Grace Eagles. As expected this year, Chisago Lakes took a quick lead and kept it steady until diving. At diving, they have two state tournament divers in Sam Thomsen and Courtney Schlegel. Those two finished one-two in the event and stretched what was a slight lead into a 46-32 cushion. The Wildcats kept building that lead throughout the meet, getting victories from Thomi Lee in the 100 fly, Dani Berg in the 100 free, Kayla Donahue in the 100 back and Lee, Berg, Hannah Emeott and Kim Colburn in the 4x200 relay. By the 100 breast, Chisago Lakes was up 91-65 and began swimming exhibition, making the final score much closer than it actually was. During the event, Lee broke her sister Brogan’s record in the 200 individual medley. Brogan’s record was 2:16.02 and Thomi bested the four strokes in 2:15.41. Donahue, Colburn, Lee and Berg also teamed for a win in the 200 medley relay for the Wildcats. Spring Lake Park 94, Chisago Lakes 92 In the past half decade, the Wildcats haven’t had much of a problem with Spring Lake Park. The Panthers usually have some quality swimmers, but they haven’t had the depth to compete with CL for the most part. And this year seemed to be the same way. “I took a look at some of their score sheets and thought there was no way we’d lose the meet,” Head Coach Ed Wakefield said. “Well this was a good lesson learned.

I think some of us, including me, took this match for granted.” The meet started a little tough for the Wildcats. They didn’t have their best 200 medley relay team in the pool for the opening race, and Spring Lake Park took advantage of that by outscoring them 10-4 with a first and third. In the 200 freestyle, Lee, Emeott and Devyn Mansfield quickly tied the score with a first, third and fourth. In the 200 individual medley, Nicole Bean had the first of her two heartbreaks on the day. She was beaten out by Morgan Dickerson of SLP by less than a second for first place. Bean took second and the Wildcats again trailed. In the 50 free, Berg, Colburn and Danielle Smythe tied the match back up with a first, third and fifth. Berg let out a howl after the time and the ‘Cats seemed a bit energized. They took their first lead of the night when they went one-two-four in diving. Thomsen won the event with a 213.10 and Schlegel got second with a 204.90.

Coming out of the diving break, Bean was again narrowly beaten. This time, Olivia Jones out-touched Bean, beating her by two one-hundredths of a second. Bean finished in 1:08.95 while Jones finishing in 1:08.93. The ‘Cats still had the lead, however, at 50-44. Over the next five events, however, Spring Lake Park slowly chipped away at the lead and kept it close. After the backstroke, it was 79-77 in favor of the Wildcats, but they knew the breaststroke was coming up, and they’ve struggled in that event for quite some time. This year was no different, SLP went one-two-three in the event to outscore CL 13-3 in the event and turn a two-point deficit into an eight point lead. With only the 4x400 relay left, Wakefield knew the ‘Cats would have to go one-two in the event to win the meet. He mixed his teams up and put Berg, Mansfield and Kalli Olson together on one team and Emeott, Madeline Maxwell, Dani Barnes and Bean together on another. It was a long shot, but it almost panned out. Berg, Mansfield, Olson and Lee won the event with a 4:00.63, the SLP top relay team came in second with a 4:07.04 and the second CL quartet come in third place with a time of 4:14.23.

The first and third left the Wildcats two points short of the win at 94-92. The stunned Wildcats were resigned to their locker rooms while the Panthers celebrated. “We just have to work on a few things,” Wakefield said. “We have to work on our touches and we need to make sure the girls know that everything counts. Even the fourth and fifth places are huge. Sometimes, they don’t realize that their one point could make the difference, but I think this will be a good lesson learned for us.”