Madison Westside entered its Wednesday night state tournament game versus host Waukesha as the underdog, but a strong class of eight outgoing seniors wasn’t about to let that end their high school careers.
Led by four goals from senior attack Jack Wollaeger and a bruising style of play on both sides of the ball, the Crusaders took out the favored Nighthawks, 11-10, at Waukesha West High School. With the victory, they earn a trip north to play No. 4 Appleton United Friday night.
“This game, we were able to focus on the fact that we didn’t want it to be our last game, and we allowed that to really carry us through,” Westside coach Michael Evans said. “We have a great senior class, and they didn’t want this to be their final game.”
Westside (5-9) jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first quarter as Wollaeger started out white hot. He scored the first and third goals of that run and assisted on senior middie Aris Lummennes’ goal, as well.
Waukesha (9-6) fought back to tie the game at three before the end of the quarter with help from some costly Crusader penalties, including a 3-minute locked flag for an illegal pocket. Westside finished the game with 12 penalties.
“To start out just going up 3-0 as a big underdog kind of shocked them a little,” Wollaeger said. Then we got some penalties and the came back on us. We’ve lost a lot of close games, but it’s mostly penalties that have been killing us.”
The Nighthawks carried the momentum into the second quarter, ending a run of six unanswered goals to take a 6-3 lead.
However, Westside settled down in the second half. After entering halftime down 6-5, Wollaeger started a 5-2 scoring run for the Crusaders as they took a 10-8 lead after three quarters.
Waukesha senior middie Tyler Leitner brought the Nighthawks within a goal with 7 minutes, 31 seconds left to play when his third goal of the game made the score 11-10. They had Westside in a 2-minute, locked-in, man-down situation with 2:45 left in the fourth, but Waukesha couldn’t convert.
“Both teams had their chances, but we just let it slip away a little bit,” Waukesha coach Ken Dixon said.
Senior middie Peter Franceschi also had three goals for Waukesha. Sophomore goalie Gavin Richards saved 12 shots for Westside.
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