Kettle Moraine boys lacrosse coach Michael Stephan admitted he kept several offensive plays in his back pocket for a good chunk of the Lasers’ state quarterfinals game against visiting Middleton. Once Stephan let his team off the leash, however, the Lasers showed why they have been the top-ranked squad in Wisconsin throughout the 2017 season.
The Lasers and the Cardinals played to a 6-6 tie entering the fourth quarter, but Kettle Moraine outscored Middleton 5-2 the rest of the way to earn the 11-8 victory and a ticket to the state semifinals.
“We were savings a few looks for later in the game just to see how they would counter,” Stephan said. “We didn’t want to throw the whole repertoire out there right away. We were feeling them out to see what they were trying to do and what they would give us.”
What Middleton (10-11) showed Kettle Moraine (19-3) was uncompromised resiliency. The Cardinals led 3-2 early in the second quarter before the Lasers went on a 3-0 run to close out the first half. Senior middie Jordan Schmid scored two of his game-high four during the stretch.
“Jordan is the leader of this team – it doesn’t matter how many goals he has,” Stephan said. “We’ve had many games where he might not score at all, but he did today because we needed him to. But his role is to carry us in whatever way we need him to, and today we needed him to score.”
Middleton managed to tie the game at six when senior attack Lane Wahlgren scored his second goal of the game for the Cardinals with 50 seconds left in the third quarter.
However, the five-goal barrage in the fourth quarter gave the Lasers their berth in the state semifinals. Sophomore attack Chris Bender scored two goals during the run off assists from Schmid to seal the victory for Kettle Moraine.
“At the start of the game, we were really trying to force things early in our offense,” Schmid said. “This year, we talk a lot about just practicing the system and what we run, so in the second quarter we just started to settle into what we’re used to and started to play our game.”
Despite the Middleton loss, senior goalie Tyler Dohmeier had a standout game between the pipes. He managed to make numerous acrobatic saves while Kettle Moraine applied nonstop pressure at times throughout the game.
“Tyler was just standing on his head over and over, especially in the first half,” interim coach Karl Wahlgren said. “He had five possessions down there where he was making saves and we were turning the ball over between the 30s, and they kept coming back down.”
Although Wahlgren took over as head coach during the 2017 season, he is seeing off many seniors he has accompanied since they were in fifth grade. He admits their competition oftentimes was better, Wahlgren said no team played with more heart than the class-of-2017 Cardinals.
“We always haven’t been technically the best team, but we have always had more heart on the field until the last second goes off the clock,” Wahlgren said.
In other Boys Quarter Final Games Saturday
Waunakee 14
Marquette 8
Verona 9
Arrowhead 10
Boys D2
Catholic Memorial 12
Oneida 9
Deforest 8
Oregon 7
Sauk Prairie 17
University School 5
Stoughton 15
Notre Dame – Green Bay 9
