The Verona boy’s lacrosse team has been the class of the Madison Area Lacrosse (MadLax) Conference and among the best in the state for years, with rival Waunakee looking up at the Wildcats as a program to emulate.
However, 2017 became the year of the Warriors Tuesday night as Waunakee won the MadLax Conference title with a hard-fought 8-7 victory at Badger Ridge Middle School in Verona.
“I think our kids have taken their lumps against Verona for the last few years,” Waunakee coach Mike Reiter said. “Verona is always such a good program with great athletes, and they play with such tremendous pride and passion. I really admire that about their program, and I think our kids have matched that today.”
Waunakee (11-5, 9-1 MadLax) was in control most of the game with staunch defense and taking advantage of numerous Verona (15-3, 8-2) penalties. Three the Warriors’ eight goals were scored in man-up situations.
“Like most teams, we spend a fair amount of time on our specialty stuff,” Reiter said. “From our perspective, it’s just about playing good, solid defense and figuring out that instead of trying to do trail checks and things that are going to cause turnovers, we should just play good body defense.”
The Warriors took a 7-4 lead with 9 minutes, 47 seconds left to play when senior attack Brayden Johnson scored his third goal of the game off an assist from senior middie Bryk Austin Duren. The Wildcats responded with three unanswered goals in next 2:15 to tie the game with 6:37 left in the game. Verona senior middie Patrick Stigsell led the charge with a goal and an assist in that stretch. Junior attack Ian Edwards scored his second goal of the game to make it a 7-6 score, and junior attack Graham Sticha tied it with his second goal of the game.
“When you have kids that play with passion like Verona does, they’re not going to give up,” Reiter said. “I give a lot of credit to them because they wanted to get back into the game and they made a couple nice plays and dodges and finished.”
Waunakee withstood the onslaught and managed to take the lead for good when sophomore middie Nick Robson scored the game-winning goal at the 6:14 mark in the fourth quarter. The Warrior defense and senior goalie Jeremy Krysinski took over from there, squashing Verona’s remaining scoring opportunities and killing a Wildcats’ man-up situation at the 6-minute mark to claim the conference crown.
“We had this game circled for a while now,” Robson said. “It just boosted our confidence even more going into the playoffs because it’s a big win for everyone. Everyone was juiced about it.”
Krysinski finished the game with seven saves for Waunaukee, and junior Kam Olsen added two goals for the Warriors.
Verona coach Nate Lutterman admitted his team made far too many mental mistakes against a strong Waunakee team, but he remains hopeful heading into the state playoffs as the No. 1 team in the state.
“We should be optimistic because Waunakee is a very good team,” Lutterman said. “Those are the types of matchups we need to embrace. The difference between this year and last year for us is we’ve had a little bit more of it and we’re hoping that’s a good thing going into the playoffs.”
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