June 2019

LA CROSSE — Lauren Pansegrau was all smiles following her state track and field debut last Saturday at Veteran’s Memorial Stadium.

On a beautiful, sun-splashed afternoon, Pansegrau picked the perfect opportunity to run the best race of her prep career.

The Middleton freshman distance runner put the finishing touches on an impressive year that began with a 31^st place finish at the Division 1 state cross country meet last fall and ended up on the podium with a runner-up finish in the 3,200-meter run at the WIAA Division 1 state track and field meet.

Pansegrau ran a strategically savvy race finishing in a personal-best time of 10 minutes, 47.81 seconds. She trailed only Onalaska sophomore Kora Malecek, a triplet whose sisters also competed in the meet, who was first in 10:36.25.

“I’m really happy,” Pansegrau said. “It was a fun race. I tried not to stay too far behind (the leader) and run with the pack around me.”

The 23-minute, half inning felt like a week to Ben Collier.

Collier, Middleton’s standout junior right fielder, watched impatiently as Madison Memorial sent nine batters to the plate in the third inning of last Thursday’s WIAA Division 1 regional final. When it was over, the Cardinals had used two pitchers, the Spartans had scored five runs and Middleton never could recover.

Memorial toppled the host Cardinals, 9-5, ending Middleton’s season in the process. The Spartans advanced to Tuesday’s Middleton Sectional, while the Cardinals finished the year 14-10.

“It was a very long inning,” Collier said. “Things just kept happening. It wasn’t errors either. They just hit the ball, kept moving guys over, and we just couldn’t get out of it.”

Middleton first-year manager Brent Jorgensen agreed.

“Oh man, that was tough,” Jorgensen said. “That inning just went on and on.”