Wildcats open season with demolition of Duluth Denfeld

The Chisago Lakes girls basketball team opened the season as the fifth-ranked team in the state in Class AAA, and against Duluth Denfeld, they sure played like it with an 80-52 drubbing. Although the Hunters weren’t a huge threat coming in, it was still the Wildcats’ first game of the year and they needed to work off the rust and start to integrate Sam Forslund as their point guard to replace four year starter Hannah Trandahl. It didn’t take long to integreate -- the Wildcats jumped out to a 16-0 lead early in the game and was basically able to cruise from that point on. Forslund kicked the run off with a forced turnover on defense that she then converted into a fast break lay up.

Division 1 recruit Bryanna Fernstrom then followed that with a putback on an offensive rebound. Back-to-back three pointers by eighth grader Carmen Backes and Forslund stretched the lead for Chisago Lakes. Their hot streak continued, and even when they would miss shots, Fernstrom and Sarah Greene were there to grab the offensive boards. Hitting the glass, coupled with Denfeld’s poor early shooting, led to the big lead early. The Wildcats coasted on the back of Fernstrom, who scored a program-record 40 points, after building the big lead, and Denfeld never really came close to making it a game. Fernstrom not only scored the 40, which tied her with Whitney Tinjum for the most points scored in a game, but she also grabbed a ridiculous 22 rebounds. Greene narrowly missed a triple double, scoring 12 points and grabbing 11 boards while adding seven steals. Forslund had 13 points in her point guard debut, dishing out eight assists.

“We have a lot of options offensively. Obviously Bry can dominate in the paint, but we also hit five three's in the first half by three different players,” Head Coach Craig Walker said. “This is just our first game, but Dani Berg, Carmen Backes, Sam Forslund and Marissa Kari can all hit from behind the arch and Sarah Greene and Bry can also shoot a decent percentage from there.” Walker liked the way things went in Chisago Lakes’ first test this year. Things will only get tougher as the year progresses. They faced two old North Suburban Conference foes this week, taking on Spring Lake Park on Tuesday and hosting Irondale on Friday. “We have some roles to fill having graduated five seniors and we saw some good things from players getting their first significant time. Paige Frank played well defensively and showed the ability to bring the ball up the floor against pressure and Carmen Backes did a great job overall in her first career start.,” Walker noted. “We have some work to do defensively. We didn't put a lot of pressure on their guards like I think we can and offensively we turned the ball over too much, but game one is in the books successfully and our kids played well.”