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Semrau: Tournament time creates plenty of memories

Dennis Semrau  —  3/18/2008 7:53 am

The countdown is over and with it another five-week span of "March madness" and "February frenzy" has come and gone.

Once again the Kodak memories for a winter prep sports tournament season have been documented and preserved in scrapbooks and on video tape and DVD to be treasured forever.

It was a bittersweet time, one full of memories both good and bad that sum up why I enjoy covering high school sports for the soon-to-be changing Capital Times.

There were plenty of highlights for area teams and student-athletes.

*** McFarland repeated as the Division 2 state champion in boys state swimming and diving. But a disqualification in the final event which moved Hartland Arrowhead up in the standings cost Madison Memorial a fourth straight team title.

*** That was followed up by the individual state wrestling tournament where Dodgeville's Bobby Wunnicke and Luxemburg Casco's Zac Cibula became the eighth and ninth four-time state champions, respectively, in the history of the meet.

But there is also the memory of a heartbroken Verona senior Andres Caceres, who suffered a dislocated elbow during his championship match and lost due to an injury disqualification.

*** The third and busiest week crowned champions in boys and girls hockey, girls gymnastics and team wrestling. In a break with tradition, Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln did not win its 13th Division 1 team state wrestling title in 14 years and sixth in a row, relinquishing the title to Wausau West. Lodi, though, won its second Division 2 title in four years and Mineral Point earned the Division 3 title outright after sharing it a year ago.

Although Madison Edgewood came up short in its bid for its first WIAA state title in boys hockey, the Crusaders took powerful and unbeaten Eau Claire Memorial to the limit before falling 3-1 in the title game.

*** Next, for the first time in history, came the boys basketball state tournament. Junior Jeronne Maymon turned in a memorable performance in leading Madison Memorial to the state finals for the fourth time in five years. Although the Spartans fell short in overtime to come away with a silver ball for the third time, the program has become one of the state's elite.

*** That left only the girls state basketball tournament, which was held last week at the Alliant Energy Center Coliseum while the Kohl Center was left empty.

But that's left for another column on another day.

What made it fitting that the girls basketball tournament would wrap up another winter tournament season were my personal and professional ties to the event.

In the media, we are supposed to be unbiased, noncommittal and even keel about what we do. No fans are allowed in the press box or on press row.

The mantra "No cheering in the press box" is taken seriously. It is a professional requirement that is usually easily met on the pro sports level and manageable at the collegiate level.

But it is difficult not to "cheer" for a high school athlete who is representing their school and community while competing for their sheer enjoyment of the sport. While we in the media must abide by the same rules as we do when covering college and pro sports, those rules are harder to enforce when it comes to covering local teams at state tournament time.

That is especially true when the community you live in and where your children attend school becomes a participant. For me, that hit home as a resident of Cross Plains and member of the Middleton-Cross Plains School District when the Middleton girls qualified for state for the first time since 2003..

In many ways, high school sports are the last bastion of pure athletic competition where student-athletes represent their communities and schools and compete for the love of the game. The 2008 girls state basketball tournament reminded me of that particularly because of my personal ties to the Cardinals program.

When I began coaching my daughter, Kelli, in Tri-county basketball seven years ago, her current senior class was cutting its competitive teeth in the sport and forming their dreams of winning state championships and gold balls.

The tournament also encompassed another one of my passions, working for the University of Wisconsin statistics crew, which also performs the same duties for the WIAA boys and girls state basketball tournaments each March.

So as tip-off time drew near Thursday night when Middleton met defending Division 1 state champion Milwaukee Vincent in a state quarterfinal game, the last thing I wanted to be was objective.

My daughter had picked up our Middleton state tournament t-shirts and I had purchased two tickets for the game and left them at the will-call window for Kelli and her friend, Katie, who were rushing to attend the game after attending tryouts for Middleton's softball and soccer teams, respectively.

I had my notebook ready for compiling the running play-by-play during the game and fresh batteries were in my tape recorder for the postgame interviews.

I also had been scheduled to work the evening session as a statistician so I settled in at the scorer's table to do double duty with fellow statisticians Pete, Rich and Darren.

However, I was pleased to note that we were located right next to the Middleton bench. While watching the seniors, in particular, during warm-ups and the game, memories came rushing back of the past seven years when I was fortunate to be counted among their early youth coaches and later among their many fans.

I took time to enjoy the moment and smiled when I located two of their Tri-County coaches, Kurt Wolff and Dennis Kessenich, among the more than 1,500 fans located behind us, who were there to cheer them on as they played the most important game of their young lives.

Although Vincent stormed out to a 12-0 lead just 4 minutes into the game, when Cassey Simon sank a pair of free throws for Middleton's first points, the Cardinal faithful roared their approval.

The Lady Vikings eventually proved to be too much to overcome, holding off a late Middleton rally. But the Cardinals battled gamely to the bitter end.

Yet, as the final seconds counted down and the end of the season for Middleton drew near, the students began chanting in unison: Thank you seniors.

Thank you, indeed, to seniors Kate Kessenich, Cassey Simon, JoLyn Owen, Ashley Klein, Lauren Gunderson, Danielle Beckwith and Kelsi Sarbacker. Thanks for the memories and for reminding us all what high school sports are about: friends, family and community.

Dennis Semrau  —  3/18/2008 7:53 am