Sports

Bring on Madison Memorial.

That’s how Middleton’s boys basketball team was feeling late Friday night following an impressive 58-52 win over Sun Prairie.

Middleton improved to 13-4 overall and 10-3 in the Big Eight Conference. The win kept Middleton within ½-game of league leaders Madison Memorial and Madison East, and set up a monster game Thursday when the Spartans come to Middleton at 7:30.

“It’s going to be a lot of fun,” said Middleton sophomore guard C.J. Fermanich, whose team was routed by the Spartans, 73-46, on Jan. 3. “I think we’re a better team than the first time we played them, so we’ll see.”

Middleton coach Kevin Bavery agreed.

“We’re coming off two pretty big wins a row right now, and I think we’re about as confident as we can be,” Bavery said. “We’ve obviously got to play much better than the first time we saw them, but I think we will.”

His eventual school of choice was just 10 minutes down the street.

But over the last year or two, Middleton senior tight end Mitchell Herl was looking wide and far.

Setting up shop on Monroe Street wasn’t always in the plan.

“I think I kind of always took the UW for granted,” Herl said. “But through this process, I really learned to appreciate everything they have to offer and how great of a school it is.”

And now, it’s a school Herl is about to call home.

Herl, a first-team all-state selection by the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association, signed a letter of intent to be a preferred walk-on with the Badgers beginning this fall. Herl will almost certainly redshirt in 2015, and then will have four years of eligibility remaining.

They are now in select company. In extremely rarified air.

Middleton’s hockey team captured the outright Big Eight Conference title last week.

The 2010-11 Cardinals were the only other Middleton team to accomplish that feat, and that group eventually reached the WIAA Division 1 state championship game.

Can the 2014-15 Cardinals do the same? Right now, it appears anything is possible.

“Claiming that title was a spectacular feeling for our guys,” Middleton junior forward Casey Harper said. “But as a team, we’re not settling with just that. Now, we are going to check off one goal, and set our sights on the next.”

Junior forward Nolan Kouba agreed.

“Winning the conference championship means a ton to us,” Kouba said. “It was one of the goals we highlighted at the beginning of the season, so to achieve that is an awesome feeling.

Storm Murphy stands just 5-foot-9.

He’s perhaps 140 pounds — soaking wet.

Storm Murphy will never be the biggest player on the basketball court. But Middleton’s sophomore guard made arguably the biggest play of the Cardinals’ season last Saturday night.

Murphy hit a driving lay-up as time expired to lift host Middleton to a stirring and much-needed 65-63 win over Madison La Follette.

“I have had a few game winners in the past, some in AAU and some in middle school for Middleton Basketball Club,” said Murphy, who finished with 11 points. “Those moments felt amazing, and so did this one.”

With good reason.

The Cardinals were routed by Madison East just 48 hours earlier and needed a bounce-back win. Middleton received exactly that and stayed in the hunt for a Big Eight Conference title.

Madison Memorial and Madison East are tied for the top spot in the conference at 10-3. Middleton improved to 9-3 in the league and 12-4 overall.

Middleton High School will host two Alzheimer’s Awareness nights during basketball games on Feb. 4 and 5.

Middleton’s girls will host Sun Prairie Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Middleton’s boys will then host Sun Prairie Friday at 7:30 p.m.

It will be an extremely meaningful night for the Boyle family of Middleton.

John Boyle was Middleton’s boys basketball coach from 1991-2006 and led the Cardinals to the 1998 WIAA Division 1 state tournament. His wife, Mary, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2010 at the age of 57.

Haley Boyle, the couple’s oldest daughter, will talk about Alzheimer’s during halftime of Friday’s game. Danny Boyle (Class of 2001) and Tone Boyle (2006) — former standouts at Middleton — will also be in attendance.

John Boyle will also be doing color commentary on Friday’s game for Channel 3000’s “Game of the Week.”

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.

First it was Storm Murphy. Then it was Tyree Eady.

Together, the pair of standout sophomores helped Middleton’s boys basketball team put together a dominant first half, en route to an impressive 76-57 Big Eight Conference victory over rival Verona last Friday night.

Murphy and Eady combined for 34 points while converting 12-of-14 field goal attempts in the first half. Murphy made all six of his 3-point attempts in the half, including four in the first period, and Eady scored 16 of his game-high 21 points in the second period.

“We started the game a little sluggish,” Eady said. “We weren’t getting back (on defense), but when Storm Murphy came in and hit those threes, it really sparked us up and sparked me up and I felt good for him. So I just wanted to go out there and play for him and my teammates.”

Middleton improved to 11-2 overall and 8-2 in the Big Eight Conference, one-half game ahead of Madison East and Madison Memorial (8-3) in the league race.

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.”

Saturday was homecoming, of sorts, for Middleton’s girls gymnastics coach Kari Steck.

Her Cardinals then made sure it was a happy one.

Middleton finished third at the Southwestern/Cuba City Invite and posted a season-high score of 138.275. Mukwonago-Kettle Moraine won the meet with a score of 142.675, while Gale-Ettirck-Trempealeau was second (139.95).

Steck, a 2009 graduate of Southwestern High School, was thrilled with how her team performed.

“The girls had a phenomenal meet,” Steck said. “The Southwestern Invite pulls in teams from the Milwaukee area, LaCrosse, and the Southern parts of the state. 

“Invitationals really have a much different feel to them than dual meets, so it's always interesting to see how girls who typically do not compete at varsity invites handle the feeling and excitement of invites. I've said 100 times how amazing this group of girls is, and it showed this weekend.”

Indeed it did.