It may have taken an extra season, but the Kettle Moraine boys lacrosse program earned its rightful place among the elite programs in Wisconsin Saturday night.

With a 18-6 victory over Middleton at Carroll University’s Schneider Stadium, Kettle Moraine joined Verona and Arrowhead has the only programs with three or more state championships.

That’s one way to erase an unexpected early exit from the playoffs completely from a team’s collective memory bank.

“Last season’s semifinal loss (to 2018 champion Verona) has been driving us the entire year,” said senior midfielder Caleb Hotchkiss, who led the Laser attack with six goals on the night. “Us seniors knew it was never going to happen again, so that drove us this playoff season to come home with the championship.”

The class of 2019 leaves behind a legacy of near-total dominance over Wisconsin lacrosse, capped off by Kettle Moraine’s third state title in four years. These seniors also have earned three Classic 8 Conference championships and have won 49 of their last 50 games.

“We’re laying a foundation that has proven fruitful,” said Kettle Moraine coach Michael Stefan, who was named the 2019 US Lacrosse Coach of the Year. “Our future teams and other teams can continue to push the envelope so Wisconsin lacrosse as a whole is constantly improving.”

Kettle Moraine (19-4) built a lead in the first quarter and never looked back. The Lasers led Middleton (17-4) jumped out to a 6-2 lead after the first period after Hotchkiss scored three of his six goals in the quarter.

“The offense just worked beautifully,” Hotchkiss said. “Everyone was just moving the ball, drawing slides, so it’s not hard when your teammates give you great shots.

The Cardinals shifted to a more aggressive defense that featured a physical style that sent plenty of their own players and Lasers to the ground countless times.

“We showed them film to reinforce that our strength collectively across the state is our stick skills,” Stefan said. “There are teams that have better athletes than we do, but we can move the ball quicker, so we can play faster and keep the ball in the air as much as possible.”

Middleton’s defensive strategy worked for a bit, but Kettle Moraine’s defense slammed the door on the Cardinals for the entirety of the second quarter.

On offense, senior attack Chris Bender picked up where Hotchkiss left off, scoring four of his six goals in the second quarter to lead Kettle Moraine to a 12-2 halftime lead. When the Lasers went up 16-5, it initiated the running clock.

With a third title on its program portfolio, Kettle Moraine now sits within the lacrosse communities’ elite. There’s no telling where the team can go moving forward.

“This puts Kettle Moraine on the map as far as Wisconsin goes,” Bender said. “It establish us as a dynasty for winning those championships, especially the last four years or so.”

It might be difficult for outsiders to find the differences between the six consecutive state title winners the Arrowhead Red girls lacrosse team has produced. But not for coach Tom Truttschel, who has seen all sorts of formulas lead to winning seasons during his time at the helm of the most decorated program in the state.

The answer was easy: this squad will do anything for each other.

“When we sat down in the locker room before the state championship game today, the conversation among the team was, ‘This team is tight,” said Truttschel, who earned his eighth state title as coach and the program’s ninth overall. “We try to have that kind of unity every year. When it comes to battles for this team, they’ll do anything for each other.”

On Friday night, it certainly took a team effort to overcome University School of Milwaukee, 11-8, since the young Wildcats were determined to give the Warhawks everything they could handle.

USM jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the 13th minute of the first half with goals by middies junior Audrey Engman and freshman Molly Janssen. Janssen scored another goal with 2:20 left in the half to put the Wildcats up 3-2. She finished with four in the game.

Arrowhead Red took a 4-3 into halftime by scoring two goals in the final 25.3 seconds of the first half. Senior attack Coryn Tormala put away a goal to tie the game at 3 before assisting on senior attack Ellie Bonk’s follow-up goal just 9 seconds later.

Tormala, the Classic 8 Player of the Year, finished the game with three goals and three assists to lead all scorers with nine points.

“Her eyes are quick to react and make the next pass, so she knows when to get the feed into her teammates and takes right shots usually,” Truttschel said. “She’s a star, and she’s the player of the for a reason.”

Arrowhead Red kept the momentum going well into the second half, completing a five-goal run with another Tormala goal at 21:06 in the period to take a 7-3 lead. A combination of stellar defense and an improved performance at the draw kept USM on its heels for a good portion of the second half.

“Initially, we came out and they matched our momentum and we were all very nervous because they are a very good team and we knew that,” Tormala said. “Then during the second half we just capitalized on their mistakes, kept it on offense, spun the ball around and ultimately got some goals.”

The Warhawks led by as many as five goals with 5:55 left to play when sophomore attack Sydney Schultz scored off an assist from sophomore attack Kylee Manser. USM freshman attack Grace Tuttle scored twice within the final 54 seconds of the game, but it would not be enough for the Wildcats.

“I think by the time we turned it on, it was too little, too late,” USM coach Sam Adey said. “But our biggest threats on offense are sophomores and freshmen, who now have a year of experience under their belt.”

If Arrowhead Red is any indication that experience goes a long way — on and off the field. Senior defender Emma Hofman knows the future of the program remains in good hands once she and her classmates move on.

“For me, this is the best [title run] for me because this is my last year,” Hofman said. “But each and every year, I come back to this group of girls who gets to play for these amazing coaches and with each other. It just gets better every year.”

As the Arrowhead Red girls lacrosse team has racked up five Wisconsin Lacrosse Federation state championships in six years, there have been countless strategies employed to slow down the best program in the state.

This year, in a rematch of last season’s title matchup, the University School of Milwaukee (USM) is bringing a youthful exuberance to throw at the Warhawks.

“We have a lot of younger players who are impact players on the team this year,” USM coach Sam Adey said, whose squad also lost the 2015 title to the Warhawks. “As the season has progressed, they have become more confident and poised on the field, which makes us more dangerous now than earlier in the season.”

It’s hard to imagine a pair of underclassmen more poised and dangerous than freshman Grace Tuttle and sophomore Anna Guttormsom, who will lead the charge to avenge USM’s loss to Arrowhead Red in the 2018 championship game.

The duo combined to score 102 points this season, including 45 goals from Tuttle and another 41 from Guttormson, as the Wildcats earned the Classic 8 – Red title.

When Arrowhead and USM met on May 13, the Wildcats fell behind early and trailed by three goals at halftime in a 9-7 loss. They managed to lose by just two goals, but Adey knows after countless battles with the Warhawks during her 10 years as a coach that you can’t give Arrowhead Red any opportunities like that.

“What we want to do hasn’t changed — it’s about execution,” Adey said. “We did not come out like we wanted to, and we dug ourselves a big hole early in the game. Then we played differently in the second half than we did in the first.”

Even though USM lost its title shot to Arrowhead Red last year, Adey isn’t dismissing the value of the experience her Wildcats gained playing under the bright lights of Schneider Stadium at Carroll University. And for the seven seniors on the squad, knowing this is their last chance for a state title at USM.

“We have a lot of seniors, and most of them are three-sport athletes,” Adey said. “For them, this is mostly their last shot, so there is a real focus for them to win a state title this year.”

For Arrowhead Red, last year’s championship team relied on a bevy of freshmen to bring home the hardware. Now that those players have one more year under their belt, that experience will prove invaluable, as well.

“The freshmen we had last year being sophomores this year, they know how to play with the upperclassmen better,” Arrowhead Red coach Tom Truttschel said.

The Arrowhead Red midfield remains the strength of this team, with All-Americans like seniors Jacklyn Batley and Coryn Tormala leading the way for the Warhawks. Sophomore Kylee Manser led the offense with 40 goals, junior Stephanie Curry had 32 and Tormala added 30 for the Classic 8 – Black champions.

The Middleton boys lacrosse team’s journey to the 2019 Wisconsin state title game began long before the Cardinals beat Waunakee, 8-6, in Wednesday night’s semifinal game at Breitenbach Stadium.

“We made a lot of changes in the program, starting with the youth program, and the boys have worked hard all offseason to get to this point,” said Sanford Erdahl, Middleton coach and the 2019 Coach of the Year for the Big Badger Conference. “The senior squad that I have is something special, and they have been playing together for a long time.”

The result of this overhaul is Erdahl’s first trip to the state final in just his third year at the helm of the Cardinals, and his seniors are ready to reward him for the turnaround.

“I think we have a dedication to play for Coach ‘Ford,’” Middleton senior defenseman Connor Hellenbrand said. “We’ve been saying, ‘We gotta do it for him.’”

The No. 2 Cardinals will face top-seeded Kettle Moraine Saturday night for the state championship at Carroll University’s Schneider Stadium.

First, Middleton (17-3) had to get past Waunakee (13-10), one of the Cardinals’ top rivals in the Big Badger Conference. Although Middleton never trailed in this game, the Cardinals maintained a slim 4-2 lead heading into half after Waunakee sophomore attack Jack Gengler score the second of his game-high four goals with 10 seconds left in the first half.

Then the Cardinals got serious on defense. Middleton pitched a shutout in the third quarter, scoring four unanswered goals in the period to take an 8-2 lead. Senior attack Kevin Grelle — an all-conference first-team selection — scored two of his team-high three goals in the third.

“I had to switch it up a bit as they were keying on me, but my teammates were finding me as I was getting the good looks and putting them away,” Grelle said. Junior middie Drew Teff scored Middleton’s other two goals in the third.

The Warriors wouldn’t go down quietly, however. Waunakee scored four unanswered goals of their own in the fourth quarter to cut Middleton’s lead to two with just 14 seconds left to play, led once again by Gengler, who had two goals in the period.

Despite the loss, Waunakee coach Mike Reiter has plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the future. The Warriors have a young core of starters with seven sophomores and a junior who will return for the 2020 campaign, and a run to the state semifinals will prove to be great experience.

“We certainly saw how we can play when we play with purpose,” Reiter said. “In those last 8 minutes, we played like we were not gonna lose and gave it everything we got. That is great to see from a bunch of high school kids.”

It has been another stellar season for the storied Arrowhead Red girls lacrosse program, who was a favorite to win the Wisconsin Lacrosse Federation state title for a sixth consecutive time and 10th time in 12 years.

However, the youthful Franklin squad had no intention of making it easy for the Warhawks Tuesday night.

Yes, No. 1 Arrowhead Red has advanced to the state title game Friday night against University School of Milwaukee at Schneider Stadium at Carroll University. However, it took withstanding a furious comeback attempt by the fourth-seeded Sabers in the second half of the Warhawks’ 11-8 victory at Taraska Stadium.

“I knew Franklin would be coming ready to play us as they’ve been on the rise as the season has gone on,” Arrowhead Red coach Tom Truttschel said. “But I think that’s a good thing. If you go into the state championship with a kind of walkover-type of attitude, maybe you’re not as prepared. From that standpoint, I like a challenging game so we’re prepared for whoever we play.”

Arrowhead Red and Franklin traded goals early in the first half before the Warhawks’ defense made their stand. The result was a five-goal run that put Arrowhead Red (15-3) up 6-2 with 4 minutes, 46 seconds left in the half.

When Arrowhead Red sophomore middie Abbie Wiese scored her second goal of the game with 13:21 left to play, it gave the Warhawks an 11-4 lead, their biggest of the game.

Franklin (11-5) wasn’t giving up that easily, however. The Sabers started winning more draws and, combined with some unforced turnovers by Arrowhead Red, put together a four-goal run of their own to get within three goals. When Franklin junior attack Jillian Krueger scored her third goal of the game with 49 seconds left to play, though, it was the last gasp for the Sabers.

“Franklin did bring a fight, but we did, too,” said Jacklyn Batley, senior middie who led Arrowhead Red with three goals. “I just think we had more energy and really wanted it.”

As good as the Warhawks have been in 2019 — they won the Classic 8 – Black Conference for the 12th time in 13 years and went undefeated in Wisconsin — they did have their share of challenging games. But having to withstand a late comeback attempt like this en route to the state championship final game can only toughen up and already battle-tested squad.

“Franklin is a great team, so playing teams like them is what’s going to make us so much better,” Arrowhead Red senior defender Emma Hofman said.

The Sabers have plenty of silver linings to take from the scare they put into the Warhawks. For one, Franklin is only losing one player to graduation this year. Coach Julianna Shearer also is excited about the eighth-grade talent pool joining the freshman class at Franklin for the 2020 campaign.

“We’re only losing one girl, so I think our run is just starting,” Schearer said. “Today wasn’t the outcome that we wanted, but I think it’s going to give us good momentum and a good push for next year.”