Sports

There are certain things that have always held true.

The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

Food, water and shelter are fundamental and unchanging basic human needs.

And the WIAA has always moved at a snail’s pace, alienating many of its members along the way.

That was the case again last week as the WIAA’s Advisory Council voted down recommendations from its basketball coaches to implement the shot clock and expand the number of state tournament qualifiers to eight in all five divisions.

Recommendations that earned majority vote from the Advisory Council advanced to the WIAA Board of Control for another vote. Then, the recommendations that received majority vote from the Board of Control would have been implemented for the 2025-26 season.

With a majority of coaches in favor of both a shot clock and state tournament expansion, many were both frustrated and exasperated by the WIAA’s decision.

Middleton’s girls soccer team had an incredibly special season.

The Cardinals won the Big Eight Conference for the first time since 2018. Middleton played 14 games before suffering its first loss of the year. And the Cardinals finished the season an impressive 14-2-5 overall.

So it made perfect sense that Middleton landed a league-best 10 players on the all-conference team.

Senior defender Payton Rademacher, senior midfielder Ursula Annstaett and sophomore midfielder Brooke Lister were all named first-team all-Big Eight. Senior keeper Lydia Paulsen, junior defender Bea Norman and junior forward Zoe Sharaf were named second-team all-conference.

And senior midfielder Addy Frantz, junior forward Izzy Frantz, freshman forward Sydney Hewuse and junior keeper Kylie Carbon all received honorable-mention all-conference honors. In addition, Middleton coach Mary Duffy was named the Big Eight’s Coach of the Year.

They finished in second place in one of the toughest conferences in the state.

They won a regional championship.

And they went 13-3 in the second half of the season to finish the year 18-9.

So it was no surprise Middleton’s baseball team had six players earn all-Big Eight Conference honors.

Senior pitcher Bennett O’Connor and junior shortstop Jackson Guerrero were both named first-team all-conference. Junior pitcher Joey Passaglia and junior outfielder Tyler Vogt were named second-team all-league, while senior infielder Ray Feinberg and senior outfielder Ethan Harris were named honorable-mention all-conference.

O’Connor went 9-2 with a 1.33 ERA and earned first-team all-conference honors for a second straight season. O’Connor had 70 strikeouts and allowed just 50 hits in 63.1 innings pitched.

O’Connor will also play in the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association All-Star game on June 27-28.

They enjoyed a breakout season, dominating the Big Eight Conference and finishing third at the WIAA Division 1 state tournament.

So it was no surprise that Middleton’s terrific boys golf team landed five players on the all-Big Eight Conference team.

Juniors Reis Von Ruden, Sammy Forslund and Luke Weiss were all named first-team all-conference. Junior Berrin Reiter earned second-team all-conference honors, while junior Sam Wolf received honorable-mention all-conference honors.

Middleton coach Tom Cabalka received Coach of the Year honors, and Madison West’s Frank Colbert was the league’s Player of the Year.

In addition, both Forslund and Von Ruden were named second-team all-state by the Golf Coaches Association of Wisconsin and Weiss was named honorable-mention all-state.

“Our  golfers had a fantastic tournament series winning the regional, sectional and finishing third at state, with only two great teams ahead of us,” Cabalka said.

Jimmy Murphy had a year to remember for Middleton’s boys soccer team.

And Murphy added to that memorable season recently.

Murphy, who will play at Southern Indiana beginning this fall, was named Wisconsin’s Gatorade Player of the Year.

Murphy, who had previously been named the state’s Player of the Year by the Wisconsin Soccer Coaches Association, helped lead the Cardinals to their second straight WIAA Division 1 state championship.

Murphy led Middleton in goals (21), assists (15) and points (57) in 2024. Murphy also had the game-winning goal and an assist in the state semifinals as Middleton rallied past Brookfield East, 2-1, with two goals in an 80-second window late in the contest. Murphy then added an assist in the Cardinals’ 2-0 win over Green Bay Preble in the state championship match.

“By his senior year, Jimmy was a force for us,” Middleton head coach Kevin Pauls said. “He lit up the scoreboard over and over.

MADISON — Rewind a few hours and this moment didn’t seem possible.

The smiles. The pictures. The joy. It all seemed unlikely.

But there they were, the members of Middleton’s boys tennis team, traipsing around on court 6 at Nielsen Tennis Stadium relishing their runner-up finish at the WIAA Division 1 team state tournament last Saturday afternoon.

The silver trophy was being passed around as the smartphone camera shutters clicked.

Middleton got there thanks to a come-from-behind win against Lake Geneva Badger in the semifinals.

The first three completed matches went third-seeded Badger’s way, giving second-seeded Middleton no margin for error in the other four matches.

The Cardinals rose to the challenge, though, winning all four to advance to the finals, where they suffered a 5-2 loss to top-seeded Brookfield Central.

The finals, though, turned into a bit of an afterthought.

A little more than 25 minutes were all that stood between Middleton girls soccer team and a trip to the WIAA Division sectional finals.

And that’s why it hurts so much.

That’s why the Cardinals’ 2-1 loss to rival Madison West at Firefighters Memorial Park on June 12 in a sectional semifinal was such a bitter pill to swallow.

“We’ll definitely keep this game (in our minds), this feeling right now. It just sucks,” Middleton junior Isabel Frantz said. “You feel it in your heart. We’ll carry that with us.”

For the seven seniors on the roster, though, this was the end. They won’t get a chance to redeem themselves in 2026.

But they left an indelible mark, helping the Cardinals to their first Big Eight Conference title since 2018 and raising the bar for years to come.

VERONA — The sport of golf is arguably the greatest game on Earth.

It’s an art form and a strategic battle rolled into one.

There’s just one problem. You can’t play defense.

And Middleton’s tremendous boys team would have loved to play a little defense at the WIAA Division 1 state tournament, which returned to picturesque University Ridge after a six-year hiatus.

The Cardinals shot an impressive two-day team score of 609. In eight of the last 12 state tournaments held at U-Ridge, that would have been good enough for first or second place.

Not in 2025, though.

Marquette broke the state record with a 584, while Hudson carded a 603. Middleton settled for third place despite posting the third-lowest score in school history at a state meet.

“The game is so much better than it used to be,” Middleton coach Tom Cabalka said. “We played really well. Some other teams just went lower.”

BARABOO — Senior pitcher Bennett O’Connor and senior center fielder Charlie Tompach will continue their baseball career as teammates at Edgewood University this fall.

Early Tuesday afternoon, though, the two Middleton Cardinals were looking forward to extending their time as high school teammates together.

Unfortunately for the duo — and all of the Cardinals — all good things must come to an end.

Madison Memorial rallied from an early deficit to edge Middleton, 2-1, in a WIAA Division 1 sectional semifinal held at Mary Rountree Evans Field in Baraboo.

The Spartans advanced to the sectional championship game where they lost to Big Eight Conference champion Sun Prairie East, 14-4, in a game called after five innings due to the mercy rule.

For Middleton (18-9), which had swept Memorial (19-8) in a pair of Big Eight Conference games to close out the regular season, it was a bittersweet day.

The third time proved to be a charm for Middleton senior hurdler Matthew Arnold, who experienced a weekend he will never forget.

Arnold, who had qualified for the WIAA Division 1 state track and field meet as a member of the Cardinals’ 1,600-meter relay the past two springs, made his debut in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles at UW-La Crosse’s Veterans Memorial Stadium last Friday evening.

Seeded eighth, Arnold stunned the field and surprised himself when he set a school record and earned the top seed in the finals with a sizzling finish in 38.42 seconds.

“I wasn’t even sure I was going to make finals, to be honest,” said Arnold, who plans to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the fall and major in Mechanical Engineering. “I knew I had to run a really good race, and I ran better than I thought I would. I was just real, happy with my race.”

Middleton head coach Chad Kliefoth was ecstatic when discussing Arnold’s race in the prelims.