Sports

One sign of a great team is how it rebounds from adversity.

Using that as a barometer, it’s more than fair to use the word “great” with Middleton’s boys swimming and diving team.

The Cardinals, ranked No. 2 in the state, fell to top-ranked Madison West, 104-66, in a Big Eight Conference dual meet Friday.

Less than 24 hours later, though, Middleton won the highly-competitive 13-team Cardinal Relays — an event that included No. 1 Madison West.

Middleton finished with 180 points and outdistanced the second-place Regents (168). Madison Memorial (157), Verona/Mount Horeb (156) and Arrowhead (146) rounded out the top five.

“The win against West on Saturday was a big morale booster for the guys,” Middleton coach Dan Lynam said. “Friday was a tough meet for us.”

Fortunately for the Cardinals, Saturday went much better.

Middleton’s boys basketball team experienced a tale of two halves on Jan. 12.

The host Cardinals went toe-to-toe with Madison East — the state’s No. 1 ranked team in Division 1 — in the first half of their Big Eight Conference battle and trailed just 28-27 at the break.

The second half, however, belonged to Madison East. The Purgolders put on a defensive clinic and put Middleton in a hole it couldn’t climb out of. 

East switched its defense in the second half, which proved to be too much for Middleton’s offense. The result was East pulled away and notched a 64-47 win.

Middleton fell to 8-5 overall and 5-5 in the Big Eight after losing its second straight game. East improved to 14-0, 10-0.

East won both games against Middleton this season, also winning 62-43 on Nov. 29.

The gameplan was simple.

Protect the ball. Play at a controlled pace. Feed the bigs.

If only the execution was that easy.

Middleton’s boys basketball team went to Madison La Follette on Jan. 10 to face a Lancers team that plays in fifth gear and tries taking teams out of their comfort zones. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, La Follette’s style of play won out.

Middleton had 29 turnovers and let La Follette dictate tempo in what eventually became a 65-46 Lancers win. The Cardinals had their six-game winning streak snapped and fell to 8-4 overall and 5-4 in the Big Eight Conference. La Follette improved to 8-3, 7-2.

“We knew coming in that they really feed off the energy of your turnovers,” Middleton senior guard Sam Close said. “And really our game plan was to try and slow it down, play at our pace and get it inside, because obviously, we had height on them. They were quicker, but we didn't want them to use that.”

Off nights are no longer an option.

Bad games need to be a thing of the past.

That’s the mindset of Middleton’s girls basketball team, which has great expectations in the second half of the season.

The Cardinals, who are still in the running for a Big Eight Conference title and a No. 1 seed in the postseason, notched a huge win on Jan. 8 that could go a long way towards keeping those dreams alive.

Middleton jumped to an 11-point halftime lead and held off host Madison La Follette, 55-50. The Cardinals improved to 8-2 in the Big Eight Conference, one game behind league-leading Sun Prairie, and are 9-5 overall. The Lancers fell to 7-3, 10-3.

“It was an important one because they had two loses just like we did,” Middleton coach Jeff Kind said. “They are kind of an up and coming team … but we knew this could go a long way toward establishing what might happen with seeding in the tournament.”

Tom Cabalka’s path to becoming a coaching legend was highly unorthodox.

And it’s certainly not recommended at home.

In the fall of 1971, Cabalka was a junior tight end at the University of Iowa and was off to a terrific start. In just the fourth week of the season, though, Cabalka suffered a broken neck.

Cabalka missed the rest of the 1971 season, then redshirted in 1972 when he also helped the Iowa coaches. It was then that the 21-year-old Cabalka could see his future.

“Even though I couldn’t play, I had a lot of fun coaching that year,” said Cabalka, who returned to the field in 1973 and regained his starting tight end job. “That’s kind of when I knew my future was going to be coaching at the college level or to get teaching job and coach high school football.”

Luckily for the folks at Middleton High School, it was option No. 2.

Free throws, free throws, and more free throws.

When Middleton’s boys basketball team met Sun Prairie last Friday night, free throw attempts were abundant as the teams combined to shoot 68.

Middleton came out victorious in the free throw battle, though, and survived a last-second shot attempt by visiting Sun Prairie in the back-and-forth affair to notch an important 62-60 win.

Middleton won its sixth straight game and improved to 8-3 overall, 5-3 in the Big Eight Conference. The win also moved Middleton ahead of Sun Prairie (4-4, 6-4) for sole possession of fourth place in the Big Eight.

“We told our guys before the game we had won five in a row, but it was against competition that we knew we could play against,” Middleton coach Kevin Bavery said. “But going up against Sun Prairie it was ‘are we good enough?’ and ‘can we stop all of their firepower?’

Hannah Flottmeyer issued the challenge.

Now, we’ll see what Middleton’s girls basketball team does with it.

Flottmeyer, the Cardinals’ senior center, was brilliant last Saturday with 21 points against visiting Sun Prairie. But turnovers and countless missed opportunities doomed Middleton, and Sun Prairie escaped with a 48-43 win in a Big Eight Conference showdown.

Afterwards, Flottmeyer realized Middleton had hit a critical point in its season. Now, where the Cardinals go from here is entirely up to them.

“This loss stinks and I kind of think right now we’re at a crossroads,” Flottmeyer said. “Are we going to take this and learn from it and improve from it and see what we need to get better at and excel in that way? Or are we just going to keep doing this and have a mediocre season?

“Truthfully as a senior, I’m not trying to go out with a mediocre season. So we need to pick it up at practice, challenge each other and finish strong.”

It was another great year for the sports teams at Middleton High School.

There were conference championships, state tournament appearances and coaching changes.

Here’s my ranking of the top-10 stories of the year.

1. Three times the fun

Not many programs could survive the disqualification of an elite relay teams.

Then again, not many programs are like the girls swimming and diving team at Middleton High School.

The Cardinals competed at the WIAA Division 1 state meet without their 400-yard freestyle relay team, which was disqualified at sectionals due to a false start.

No worries.

Middleton finished with 249.50 points – 61.5 points ahead of second-place Cedarburg (188) and brought home its third straight state championships. Sun Prairie finished third with 170 points and Verona /Mount Horeb took fourth with 169 points.

Jeff Kind doesn’t need to go into Tony Robbins-mode when Verona comes to town.

Kind, Middleton’s girls basketball coach, simply needs to point at the schedule.

“With Verona, we don’t have to sell anything,” Kind said. “It’s just one of those games. The kids know it’s a big game.”

And on Dec. 20, Middleton gave a big-time performance.

The Cardinals got 16 points and 12 rebounds from senior post Hannah Flottmeyer and junior forward Sitori Tanin had 14 of her 18 points in the second half as Middleton drilled Verona, 65-49. Senior guard Charlotte Dunn added 10 points and did a masterful job getting the Cardinals into their offense, while junior forward Karina Bursac added nine points and eight rebounds.

Casey Hellenbrand has waited a long time for his chance to shine.

The same goes for Chandon Thomas.

Middleton’s duo both erupted on Dec. 18 and powered the Cardinals to a 67-54 win over visiting Janesville Craig.

Thomas, a senior guard who’s been in and out of the starting lineup all season, led Middleton with 15 points. Hellenbrand, a reserve senior guard, added a career-high 13 points.

Hellenbrand added five rebounds and two steals, while Thomas had four rebounds and two steals.

The Cardinals improved to 5-3 overall and 4-3 in league play, while Craig fell to 4-3, 3-3.

“Chandon is all out, all the time,” Middleton coach Kevin Bavery said. “He can get out of control at times, so we do have to reel him in a bit, but he’s starting to get better at picking and choosing when is a good time to gamble and when is a good time to just play sound.