By Greg Bates
Sports editor
March has truly been madness.
In the last three weeks, I’ve covered games at the Cornerstone Community Center, the Kress Center at UW-Green Bay, Bob Suter’s Capitol Ice Arena in Middleton, Oshkosh West High School, the Resch Center in Green Bay, back-to-back days and the Kohl Center in Madison back-to-back days.
Those weeks were filled with boys’ and girls’ hockey as well as boys’ and girls’ basketball postseason tournaments.
The Press Times covers 12 area high schools, and March has certainly shown that these schools produce some really good athletic programs.
In a matter of 21 days, I covered four state championship teams. As the sports editor at a newspaper, getting to cover even one state-winning team in your journalism career is a treat. I got four in what felt like just a few days.
This winter high school season was certainly an anomaly.
The Bay Area Ice Bears girls’ hockey team started the championship run by winning state on March 4 in Middleton. Just hours later in the same rink that is named after 1980 Olympian Bob Suter, the Notre Dame Academy boys’ hockey team capped off an undefeated season by winning the Division 1 title.
Myself and writer Will Soquet, who is a student at UW-Green Bay, traveled to Middleton early that Saturday morning to cover the state championship hockey games. Will wrote the Ice Bears’ game story while I took photos. As the Ice Bears celebrated their title — beating Superior/Northwestern 3-0 — NDA prepared to win its first championship since 2011-12.
The Tritons were victorious 8-2 over Verona, avenging a loss in overtime to the Wildcats in the 2019-20 state title game. I wrote the game story and took photos, and Will wrapped up his Ice Bears story and dove into a sidebar story on the Tritons seniors. I had a chance to chat with state player of the year Hunter Bill after the game. We shared a good laugh about him almost attempting the famous “Michigan goal.” For those who don’t know, Michigan’s Mike Legg scored a remarkable goal in 1996 by lifting the puck off the ice, carrying it from behind Minnesota’s net and flicking it past the goalie into the back of the net. Bill had the puck behind Verona’snet sans any defenders in sight. He bent down, acting like he was going to try the “Michigan,” but he ended up passing it instead to an open teammate.
I asked Hunter, “Can you do it?”
“Can I?” he said. “Of course, of course.”
I said, “Have you tried it?”
“Of course,” he said.
We both laughed.
“I saw you bend down and I was like, ‘Oh, man. He’s going to do it.’”
“I was going to,” Hunter said. “I was just sitting there and no one was there and I’m like, ‘I’m going to do this. I’m going to do it.’ Then someone came around and I passed it out.”
Will and I filed our stories and were the last ones out of the ice rink, leaving the media room at about 10 p.m. It was a long, late drive back to De Pere.
For the girls’ basketball state tournament held annually at the Resch Center, I didn’t have to travel far to cover Notre Dame Academy. The Tritons were going for a three-peat in Division 2. After getting tested in the state semifinals by McFarland, beating them 76-70, the Tritons got a rematch against Pewaukee. NDA lost its season opener at Pewaukee, but the state title game was a different story. The Tritons cruised 64-49, hoisting the gold ball for the third straight year. Coach Sara Rohde has built an absolute juggernaut with the program, winning five titles in 11 seasons. I didn’t shoot too many photos during the two NDA state games, but our photographer Jason Coisman captured some great action shots.
Last week, I traveled solo to Madison to cover the state boys’ basketball tournament. Undefeated De Pere was the team to beat in Division 1. I booked a hotel for Friday night in anticipation that the top-ranked Redbirds would win their semifinal game and advance to Saturday’s title match. De Pere defeated a scrappy Kettle Moraine squad 55-44 in the semis. In the championship game, De Pere started slowly, but played an exceptional second half — outscoring Arrowhead 47-29 — to pull off a 20-point victory, 69-49. Even when De Pere led by just one point with 11:32 remaining in the game, I don’t think there was ever any doubt from the Redbird players that they would win. The confidence exuded by the De Pere guys this season was second to none.
After the media met with De Pere coach Brian Winchester and players Johnny and Zach Kinziger, I pulled Johnny aside in the Kohl Center concourse to chat about the senior class. As always, Johnny was pure class for the interview. After we finished, Johnny gave me a pound and thanked me for all the coverage this season. He was truly appreciative. To have an athlete go out of their way to thank a newspaper for coverage is an extremely nice gesture. But I wouldn’t expect anything less from Johnny. With a smile from ear to ear on his face, Johnny walked up to his next coach, Ryan Pedon. The Illinois State men’s basketball coach traveled the three hours from Normal, Ill., to watch his future point guard win a state title.
To put into perspective how amazing the seasons were for the four state championship teams, they finished with a combined record of 112-4.
With the De Pere boys’ basketball team and Notre Dame boys’ hockey team going undefeated and the Notre Dame girls’ basketball team suffering just one loss, those three programs went a combined 87-1. The most eye-popping statistic of all is that since the NDA girls lost their season opener, they combined with NDA hockey and De Pere basketball to win their final 87 games of the season.
As a media member, it’s not kosher to root for teams that you cover — not openly, anyway. But it was easy to root for these four championship-caliber teams because of their exceptional student-athletes and their genuinely nice head coaches.