Following Wauwatosa East's semi-final victory over Brookfield Central at the state tournament in Madison Friday night, one of the Madison area writers asked coach Tim Arndorfer in a polite way if the Red Raiders were saving their best for last.
Afterall, East beat a tall Eau Claire North team, 50-38, pulling away in the final minutes and then had a grind-it-out 52-48 victory over Central, which played most of the first half without the Greater Metro Conference Player of the Year Cory Degner, who left the game with two fouls with about three minutes left in the first quarter.
"You must have played better in the sectional to beat Custer and King," the reporter asked Arndorfer. Basically, most media felt the only thing delaying giving Madison Memorial the gold ball Saturday night was the game which had to be played beforehand.
The fact was, this Raider team was losing to a Madison Memorial team in a summer league game and then rallied to win. When this was brought up at Friday's press conference, East junior Mike Cupertino answered the question like a pro. "What happened in the summer, has nothing to do with tomorrow night's game."
The Spartans' Jeronne Maymon put on perhaps the best single game performance I have ever seen from a high school basketball player. Like the cliche goes, he did everything but sell popcorn. The 6-foot-5 inch junior scored 33 points, grabbed 17 rebounds and blocked three shots, but by the time the game was over he was exhausted since his teammates sat around and watched his performance.
The Tosa East players knew what they were capable of as the "Team Together" slogan on the back of their T-shirts pretty much summed up the title game. The Red Raiders were a team when it came to breaking the normal devastating Memorial press and playing a rare 2-3 zone which stopped everyone except the manchild Maymon. When coach Steve Collins was asked why Memorial called off the press, his response was simple - "Because they were getting too many lay-ups off it."
The stats showed they were a team also - Jake Barnett scored 15 points and added 7 rebounds; Eric Williams scored 14 points and was 3-for-3 from 3-point range, including perhaps the biggest 3-pointer in Tosa East history that sent the game into overtime; Brice Powell scored 12 points, had 6 assists and grabbed 6 rebounds, including the biggest one of the game which set up Williams shot; D.J. Cupertino came off the bench and played with a bad ankle, scoring 10 points and getting a key steal at the end of the game and Tony Walls, who had 5 points, 6 assists and 3 steals, played the floor game of his life, helping destroy the Spartans trap and press.
But even this impressive performance didn't change some media member's mind when after the game he said, "If these team's played 10 games, Tosa East would only win four of them."
No one will ever know, but Saturday night the Red Raiders won the only one that counted.
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