Wildcats host packed Wild Mountain Invite

Wild Mountain Invitational Boys For the last three years, Jake Sandgren has been a familiar face for the Chisago Lakes boys alpine ski team. This year, that face nearly ascended to the top spot at his home invitational. Sandgren led the boys team with a third place finish at the event in a time of 1:01.63. He got off to a smooth start on the blue course, finishing in 30.69 seconds, good enough for fifth on that run. He followed that up in the afternoon run with a 30.94, which ranked fourth on the red course. His total time fell only behind Centennial’s Taylor Lindy, who finished in 58.97 seconds and Mounds View’s Nik Damberg, who finished in 59.05 seconds. Lindy finished third at the state meet last year. The invite also featured Jack Post, last year’s state champion from Eden Prairie. Even with two clean runs, he finished in 1:02.29, just a hair behind Sandgren. Anders Brown was the only other top skier for Chisago Lakes that had two clean runs. He finished in 14th place at the meet with a combined time of 1:06.30.

Tanner Rivard was third for the Wildcats after hitting a few corners too hard in his first run and registering a 42.65, which was 75th in that run. However, Rivard’s true potential was shown in the second run, when he finished in 14th place on the red course with a time of 32.79 seconds. He finished 47th overall. Hunter Haas also had a spill in his first run, leading to a tough 48.61 on the blue course. He rebounded for a respectable 34.62 on the red course to finish in 73rd overall. Stillwater won the meet with 443 points, followed by Minnetonka with 433. Minneapolis Alpine Ski Team rounded out the top three with 420 points. The Wildcats finished in seventh place out of 21 teams with 371 points. They were just four points behind Mahtomedi. Girls The girls had a tough time on the slopes from the get go. Even top skier Ellie Frischmon couldn’t crack the top 20 in the first run on the red course.

But, she rebounded for a 13th place finish on the blue course and came in 14th place overall with a combined time of 1:08.26. The other ‘Cats couldn’t quite keep that pace. Hannah Janzig finished in 57th place overall with a time of 1:17.85 after earning matching 64th place finishes on each run. Lauren Peltier finished in 72nd place with a time of 1:20.79. Claire Eikens rounded out the eligible scorers for CL with a 77th place finishe with a time of 1:23.59. The other two Wildcat skiers, Katie Swanson and Annalise Parks, were disqualfied on one of their runs and weren’t able to register an official time. The Wildcats finished in 14th place out of 21 teams at the invitational with 296 points. The top spot went to Minnetonka, which scored 474 points to run away with the meet. Mahtomedi claimed second with 418 points and Brainerd was hot on their tail with 416 points. No other teams score of 390 in the female division of the invite.