January 2015

It was 9:30 on Thursday evening.

The lights inside the Madison East gymnasium had already been turned off — then restarted. Aside from a few stragglers, the place was now empty.

One floor below, though, Middleton coach Kevin Bavery was still going strong. Nearly 30 minutes after the host Purgolders had manhandled the Cardinals, 64-48, Bavery was still giving his team an earful.

“He really wasn’t mad,” Middleton senior guard Kellan Schulz said of Bavery. “He tried to put it on a real level with us.

“He said, ‘I don’t know if they’re just flat out better than us,’ and guys were shaking their heads like, ‘No.’

“But we obviously got out-toughed. All the offensive rebounds were absolutely inexcusable. Beating us up the sideline. I mean, there’s things we’re good at. We have the energy, but I think it was effort.”

Whatever it was, it wasn’t pretty.

Dreamlike. Fantastic. Unreal.

This is how Colin Butler and the rest of Middleton’s hockey team felt last Saturday night.

Butler scored arguably the Cardinals’ biggest goal of the year. The sophomore forward corralled a rebound and beat Verona goalie Nathan Cleghorn at 5:10 in overtime to lift Middleton to a wild 3-2 win over the host Wildcats.

Middleton improved to 13-3-1 with the dramatic win. The Cardinals also improved to 10-1 in the Big Eight Conference and hold a two-game lead over Madison Memorial (8-3, 13-5) with three games remaining.

“We have had some other big games and big goals this year, but this one was really surreal,” Butler said. “And it was an amazing feeling to get a huge win with those guys.

They desperately needed a game like this.

One to help bury a forgettable two-week stretch. One to re-establish confidence throughout the team. And one to stay in the hunt for a Big Eight Conference title.

Middleton’s girls basketball got all of those — and more — during an impressive 85-43 dismantling of host Madison East last Saturday.

The Cardinals made a school record 20 three-pointers, highlighted by five from senior guard Elizabeth Norregaard and four from senior forward Jenna Blair.

“It’d be nice to shoot it like that every night,” Middleton coach Jeff Kind said. “It was nice to come out and do that. Shooting makes everything look better. And we finally played with some intensity again and just got after it.”

Surprise, surprise.

The Big Eight Conference boys basketball season has hit the midway point. And to the astonishment of most folks in the basketball world, Middleton sits alone atop the league.

The Cardinals won a pair of games last week and surged to the head of the Big Eight pack. Middleton defeated Janesville Craig, 74-59, last Thursday and toppled Janesville Parker, 68-46, last Saturday.

Both wins, coupled with minor upsets around the conference, vaulted the Cardinals into first place.

Middleton is now 7-2 in league play and 10-2 overall. The Cardinals are one-half game ahead of Madison Memorial and Madison East (both 7-3). Sun Prairie is one game back at 6-3.

“I guess there are a lot of ways to look at that, but from our team’s perspective we have a long ways to go,” Middleton coach Kevin Bavery said. “It’s a bit misleading since we’ve played Parker twice and have yet to play La Follette even though the first round is complete.