VERONA — It had been a prep football season defined by a change of scenery, or at least until the final seconds ticked off Wednesday night on Verona's first season in the Big Eight Conference.

That's when everything finally seemed familiar to the Wildcats.

Cameron Bathe and Mason Meyer scored early touchdowns and Verona made them hold up against Janesville Craig and its dangerous spread offense, walking away from Curtis Jones Field with a 28-14 victory and a share of the Big Eight title with Middleton. It was the Wildcats' fourth conference title in as many years, the previous three coming in the Southern Badger Conference.

"It's more exciting now because we were moving into a new conference and we were just showing all those people that we can play, too," Meyer said. "Coming in and proving to (the Big Eight) that we can play is the greatest feeling."

The Wildcats (8-1 overall) still had one more team to convince and they didn't waste any time doing so.

After stopping Craig on downs at the Verona 14-yard line on the game's opening drive, the Wildcats needed five plays to get to midfield and one more to reach the end zone. That came on Bathe's 50-yard touchdown surge up the middle, giving the Wildcats a 7-0 lead with 6 minutes, 30 seconds to go in the opening quarter.

"The blocking was amazing on that; I really didn't have to do much," said Bathe, who would finish with 140 yards on 21 carries.

His TD burst was big, but quarterback Trevor Burmeister's 32-yard slant pass to Meyer for Verona's second might have been bigger. It gave the Verona defense a two-touchdown cushion against the Cougars' quick-strike offense.

"You want to give your defense a cushion," Burmeister said. "They've carried us a lot throughout this year. At Sun Prairie (last week) and today, I think the offense did a pretty good job carrying the defense. But they made big plays, too."

Most of them came after the Cougars (5-4) made it a 21-14 game at the half. Quarterback Zach Bayreuther threw a 10-yard TD pass to Joey Kennedy for the first score and — after Verona countered on a 5-yard run by sophomore Ryan McDonald with 5:45 to go in the first half — then lobbed an 11-yard TD strike to 6-foot-5 JoJo Pregont with under 2 minutes left in the half.

"We've got a chance to come back every time we get our (darn) hands on the ball," Craig coach Bill O'Leary said. "(Trailing) 21-14 isn't good enough. That's too many points to give up. And once again we start a game by getting down to the 20 and not getting points out of it. We can't have those empty possessions."

Neither team can afford to have those now — with the WIAA playoffs set to begin Tuesday, even if the Wildcats don't know whether they'll be in Division 1 or Division 2.

"We're not going to worry about that," Burmeister said. "Whatever happens, happens. We're just going to come out and play the best football we can."