By Keith Brake
Editor
MINERAL POINT, Wis., March 12 – As they stepped out into a raw, breezy March 12 evening, Cuba City High School senior basketball players Brady Olson and Jackson Noll had mixed feelings.
They had just defeated rival Darlington 55-48 in a physical, emotional sectional tournament semi-final game on a neutral court.
It was Cuba City’s third win over Darlington this season. The Redbirds had lost to just one other team – a squad from Kansas.
But as they walked the parking lot, Olson and Noll had a certain uneasy feeling.
The Cubans are 25-0 and the top-rated team in Wisconsin’s Division 4 – they would be in Class 2A in Iowa. But, they are, for the moment, unfulfilled.
Reason: One win shy of qualifying for their state tournament, they may have played their last game.
March 13 – LATEST – The Cubans, and all Wisconsin teams, have played their last game. The governing Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association announced early Friday morning, March 13, that both the girls and boys tournaments are canceled.
Reason: The coronavirus pandemic. It’s beyond the players’ control. Still, it has to gnaw at them.
State high school associations across the nation are canceling their state tournaments, or ordering limited attendance. Iowa will play its final sessions with limited numbers of spectators this weekend.
Illinois canceled its state tournament. They didn’t postpone it. It’s not going to happen at all.
Wisconsin declared on Thursday that each team could only sell 88 tickets.
That meant that maybe just a little over 200 people, including workers and media people, were in a 1,500-seat gym in Mineral Point. The game had sold out more than a day before it was played. That ticket money will have to refunded.
Montezuma Braves fans reading this have to be pleased they were able to get into and out of Des Moines with a third-place boys trophy on Thursday. They got to experience a full range of emotions, including a certain amount of fulfillment, after finishing a 25-3 season.
All who wanted to attend that game were able to do it in person at Wells Fargo Arena. Had the consolation game been on Friday, that would not have happened.
Back in Cuba City, about 20 youngsters gathered in Splinter Park, as they often do, playing basketball in cold wind. They knew they wouldn’t be going to Mineral Point, so maybe they were working off nervous energy.
But Cuba City students did see the game – on closed circuit TV. The high school and middle school hosted screenings, for 250 or fewer, which the national guidelines in this kind of emergency call for.
They watched at a theater in nearby Platteville, too, which had been rented to show the game.
I need to tell my Montezuma readers that what Montezuma is to FFA in Iowa, Cuba City is to Wisconsin in basketball.
Montezuma has won more FFA state championships than all of the other high schools in Iowa combined.
Cuba City’s 79-year-old coach, Jerry Petitgoue, has guided the Cubans to three state championships, one runnerup finish, and 30 league championships.
He’s Wisconsin’s all-time leader in wins. I’ve got him with 963 now, a .790 winning percentage, and he’s about 275 wins above second place.
The girls’ program at Cuba City has never had a losing season since it began in 1974 and has 11 state crowns.
So, tradition never graduates.
And, not getting a chance to play for a state title likely would not go down easily in Cuba City. But, you control what you can control.
The Wisconsin board in control was meeting late Thursday night to determine what will happen to the rest of the state series. The girls are playing their state finals this week in Green Bay.
Officials Thursday learned that the Kohl Center in Madison, scheduled to host the boys tourney next week, will not be available.
Cuba City had scored 86 and 79 points in its two previous wins over Darlington. The two are in the same conference. This time, Darlington’s defense got the fast-breaking Cubans slowed down a bit.
Petitgoue doesn’t like “grinder” games with this team. A steal or a defensive rebound for the Cubans is like lifting the lid on a box of jackrabbits as they bound to the other end.
Cuba City led 24-22 at halftime, so it was a grinder.
Darlington’s 1-3-1 zone slowed the Cubans and the Redbirds did a good job keeping Cuba City from hurting them on the offensive boards.
But Cuba City filled Darlington’s passing lanes on defense and the Redbirds were not consistent hitting from three-point range.
Darlington trailed just 49-46 with with 45 seconds left. Cuba City’s Noll made two free throws, as did 6-6 junior post Brayden Dailey with 30 seconds left after snaring a defensive rebound.
Jack Misky, Cuba City’s 6-4 “Silent Assassin,” rebounded a missed trey, and Cuba City’s lead was safe. Dailey scored 20 points for Cuba City, guard Brady Olson had 16 and Misky had 14.
Cayden Rankin scored 14 for Darlington, and Carter Lancaster, player of the year in the conference, put in 12 for the Redbirds, who closed the books on a 22-4 season.
“We’re happy to be moving on,” Petitgoue said to John Satterlee of South78radio.com. If they do, it will be at 1 p.m. Saturday in Baraboo.
“I hope we’re playing,” said Petitgoue.
Keith Brake, editor of Montezuma Magazine, is also sports editor of The Record in Montezuma and has reported sports for more than 50 years. He moved to Cuba City in mid-2019.