Sports

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.

When Middleton’s girls soccer team last qualified for the WIAA Division 1 state tournament in 2013, the Cardinals’ current seniors were all kindergartners.

The rest of Middleton’s 2025 roster still weren’t in school.

That can all change this weekend.

Middleton rolled to a pair of wins last week and captured a regional title. The Cardinals routed Beloit Memorial, 11-0, in a regional semifinal on June 3. Middleton then cruised past Sun Prairie West, 5-0, in a regional final last Saturday.

“The girls played extremely well and focused this week, especially the Sun Prairie West game — one where the score during the regular season was misleading to anyone who just looked at scores and didn't see the dominance at the game,” Middleton coach Mary Duffy said.

The Cardinals, seeded second in their sectional, improved to 14-1-5 and will host third-seeded Madison West (13-2-2) in a sectional semifinal Thursday at 7 p.m.

MADISON — Alexander Bo thought one thing. Turns out, the opposite was true.

The Middleton junior’s ability to recognize that and adjust made all the difference last Saturday morning in the semifinals of the singles draw at the WIAA Division 1 individual state tennis tournament.

Bo, seeded fourth, dropped the first set against top-seeded and defending state champion C.J. Kryscio of Menomonee Falls. Thanks to his keen court I.Q., though, Bo was able to rally to take the second set and the super tiebreaker, winning 2-6, 6-3 (10-5) to advance to the finals at Nielsen Tennis Stadium.

The tall, right-handed swinging Bo suffered a 6-1, 6-4 loss to second-seeded Nolan Shaub of Union Grove in the championship match, but had a memorable weekend at state.

Middleton manager Brent Jorgensen grew up a stone’s throw away from Lambeau Field.

When it comes to his 2025 Cardinals, though, Jorgensen draws many parallels with today’s Detroit Lions.

“The coach of the Detroit Lions, Dan Campbell, said something to the effect of ‘if you knock us down, we'll either get back up or bite off your kneecaps’ and that seems to hold true for this team this year,” Jorgensen said. “We are known for having teams with grit and resilience, but the word that comes to mind for this team is resolve.”

That was evident again in Middleton’s 2-1 win over Madison West in a WIAA Division 1 regional final on June 5.

The Cardinals trailed, 1-0, when they struck for two runs in the fifth. Bennett O’Connor, a first-team all-conference pitcher each of the last two seasons, was brilliant and made those runs hold up to help Middleton advance.

BARABOO — For many, silence can be golden.

For Middleton’s girls softball team, silence — both on and off the field — meant the end of a memorable season that fell short of their desired goal.

Middleton dropped a 3-2 decision to Sun Prairie East in a WIAA Division 1 sectional final held at Pierce Park in Baraboo on June 5. Middleton’s offense could never get going, while pitcher Megan Button cracked at the worst possible time.

When it was over, Middleton coach Brittany Carl and her team refused to speak to multiple media outlets.

It capped a frustrating night in which Middleton was gunning for its first trip to state since 2008, but instead watched Sun Prairie East earn a remarkable eighth straight trip to Goodman Field dating back to its time as one school.

VERONA – Competing in track and field is often viewed as an individual sport.

Not at Middleton High School, though, which has a strong tradition of qualifying its boys and girls relays to the WIAA Division 1 state meet.

Middleton advanced seven of its eight relays to the Verona Sectional meet last Friday. But it was up to the Cardinals’ girls 1,600-meter relay, competing in the final event of the evening, to save the day.

Entering the final event of the evening, junior Olivia Chellevold was Middleton’s only female to have qualify for the state meet, having done so in the 3,200-meter run.

Chellevold got some company, though, when the Cardinals 1,600 relay team of juniors Andrea Wipperfurth, Abby Arnold and Noel Neuser and sophomore Haley Jodlowski finished third in a personal record time of 4:08.75.

Middleton’s girls softball team paraded around Firefighter’s Park on May 29, proudly displaying the regional plaque they had just captured.

In the wake of the Cardinals’ dominant 7-1 win over visiting Holmen in a WIAA Division 1 regional final, the Cardinals posed for pictures. They savored the moment.

In the midst of the revelry, though, Middleton manager Brittany Carl made one thing perfectly clear.

“We’ve gotten this plaque before,” Carl said. “We ideally want another one a week from today.”

Middleton, the No. 1 seed in its sectional, hasn’t reached the state tournament since 2008. And these Cardinals realize there’s no time like the present.