Finishing the regular season with a record of 13 wins and just 4 losses, the Middleton Cardinals enter the playoffs with a first-round bye. In the second round, on June 1, the Cards will face the winner of the May 30 game between the DeForest Norskis and the LaCrosse Lightning.
As the team prepares to make a run at the state championship, head coach Sanford Erdahl reflects on the team’s performance thus far.
What was the high point of the team’s regular season?
Two games come to mind: Lake Forest and Kettle Moraine. Going into Lake Forest, a top-3 team in Illinois, and being able to compete down there and get that win was a real high point. And then going in to Kettle Moraine with a packed house for their youth night and pulling off a win there, that was huge for us.
Which players made the most significant contributions?
Throughout the season we saw big contributions from Will O’Brien at faceoff. Also, Ollie Wenning ended up being a huge addition for us on defense, stepping in as a freshman.
And then on offense, we were kind of a six-headed monster. I’d single out Troy Teff for initiating a lot of our offense, which opened up opportunities for people like Parker Leslie, Arjay Johnson and James Grosspietsch to really contribute for the offense.
What did the team learn from the tough losses to Hudson and Waunakee?
Whenever we took a loss, our next tough game, we came back to play. We lost to Waunakee and then ended up beating Lake Forest, a top 3 team in Illinois. Same thing with Hudson: we ended up losing against Hudson but then going to Kettle Moraine and beating them. So we rebound extremely well. The boys and the coaches are able to see what we need to do differently and then we make adjustments and improve on them.
At the start of the season, expectations were that the offense, with all returning players, would be strong but the defense was more of a question mark. How would you describe the defense’s development over the season?
With losing our senior D-pole players last year, and our goalie and starting defensive middie,
we thought we were really looking at a rebuilding year on defense, but that ended up not being the case. We were able to reload very effectively.
We’ve had injuries and had people step up and be able to succeed right away. One example is Gus Wenning going down with an injury and Trey Suttle going right in. It shows how deep we are at the defensive positions even when we are missing the starters.
What will it take for the team to win the state championship?
For us to win the state championship, it’s going to come down to the hustle plays, the ground balls, us competing on the ride, working on the clear. It all comes down to how gritty we are, making those plays that end up shifting the momentum of the game. That’s what it’s going to take.
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