It’s always a great feeling to land that elusive first victory of the season after an extended winless drought. But the Middleton boys lacrosse team managed to make their first win of 2017 extra special by taking down Hudson – the 2016 state runner-up – in a 13-10 home game at Breitenbach Stadium.
“I’m hoping they realize this is a huge confidence boost for them,” Cardinals coach Matthew Bock said. “But we’re still really early in the season, so anything can happen for anybody. We have a particular path we can follow now.”
Although Middleton (1-4) lost their first four games of the season, Bock made note of the difficult schedule the Cardinals endured to start the year. The Cardinals played their first four games over eight days, including two games with perennial powerhouses Kettle Moraine and conference foe Verona.
Getting in a week of practice before Hudson (3-3) came to town Saturday proved fruitful in the first half alone. The Cardinals put up eight goals – more goals that they had scored in any one game before hosting the Raiders – to take a 2-goal lead into halftime.
“That was the nice thing about this week – we got the kids to refocus themselves,” Bock said. “To have them come out here and have an entirely different mindset than they’ve had the last couple weeks because of some of the sore losses is a big testament to the work they put in.”
Attacker Lane Wahlgren scored three of his four goals in the first half, including the third of a 3-0 Middleton run that gave the Cardinals the 8-6 lead going into halftime.
“When you start of 0-4, that sucks,” Wahlgren said. “But we’re making the strides and the right amount of adjustments that we need to in practice to go out here and compete with whoever we want to.”
The Raiders would get within one goal twice in the second half, but Middleton sealed the victory with another 3-0 run with about 5 minutes left in the game. Middleton goalie Tyler Dohmeier made 20 saves for the Cardinals, including six in the fourth quarter alone.
“This was obviously one of Tyler’s best games over his career,” Bock said. “He had a number of dramatic saves in a number of key situations, and he was able to dial himself in and stay focused, especially seeing a lot of great shots from Verona. They weren’t holding back.”
To Hudson’s credit, the Raiders had a long day between a roughly three-and-a-half-hour road trip and a morning tilt against Verona, where they lost 12-9. But Hudson coach Jake Johnson wasn’t prepared to make excuses for a flat performance by his team.
“Mental mistakes killed us, unforced turnovers killed,” Johnson said. “We came off a really tough, physical game against Verona, and we weren’t ready to butt heads with another team.”
Tanner Gornick and Cole Danielson each scored three goals for the Raiders. Goalie Luke Erickson made 11 saves in the second half off the bench for Hudson.
Middleton heads to Waunakee Tuesday with hopes of securing their first Madison Area Conference – Red Division victory of the season. Hudson has two weeks off before hosting Waunakee then traveling to Red River in Grand Forks, N.D., on April 29.
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