Mukwonago falls in overtime in boys lacrosse final in Sun Prairie

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SUN PRAIRIE – Mukwonago fell to Hudson 11-10 in overtime in the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association state boys lacrosse championship on June 13.

Immediately following the Hudson girls title earlier in the afternoon, the boys completed the sweep of the third annual WIAA-sanctioned lacrosse tournament while denying another Milwaukee-area program state gold. Two goals in the final minute for Mukwonago to tie the game in regulation went for naught as the Raiders won on Gavin Tarnowski’s golden goal a minute and 27 seconds into overtime.

“I’m proud, like I’m as proud of my boys as I ever have been,” Mukwonago coach Billy Spingola said. “I’m not teaching them to just win a state championship, I’m teaching them to be men. … Winning is just losers that try one more time, so soak the punch, keep your chin up, shut the f− up and go to work.”

Mukwonago struck first with unassisted tallies by sophomore Isaac Motl and senior Mason James just past the midway point in the first quarter, but Hudson was able to respond with a run of six goals that helped the Raiders achieve a 7-4 halftime advantage. Buchanon Franta scored unassisted with just over a minute left in the first before Tarnowski scored off an assist from Benjamin Grismore 30 seconds later to end the quarter tied at two.

“We play with a lot of energy. I thought that took the Hudson boys a little bit to warm up once they started finding a couple,” Spingola said. “They’ve had a huge goal run in every playoff game, so we knew that we were expecting something. We’re just a little lucky that theirs came a little bit sooner than ours did.”

Hudson took the lead on consecutive goals by Jaxson Saltzman in the first three minutes of the second quarter, the first coming off a Tarnowski assist and the second off a Grant Bjerke assist. The score held at 4-2 for five minutes before Oliver Rivera scored off a Grismore assist with just over 4:30 remaining. The final two minutes of the half saw four goals scored, starting with a Grismore tally off an assist from Carson Sprenger that made the Hudson lead 6-2.

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Mukwonago responded with its first goal since the 4:34 mark in the first quarter on a goal by sophomore Jayden Schaefer off an assist from sophomore Austin Green with 1:35 remaining in the half. Hudson briefly got the lead back out to four on a Tarnowski goal assisted by Franta with 46 seconds remaining before James tallied his second of the game off a Schaefer assist with 16 seconds left in the half to make the deficit 7-4 for Mukwonago at the break.

Mukwonago got its strongest defensive quarter in the third, shutting out Hudson while scoring twice in the latter half of the frame to pull within one. Green scored first with just under six minutes remaining off an assist from Schaefer, which Noah Huebner followed with an unassisted goal just past the five-minute mark. Hudson held the ball for a nearly two-minute possession near the end of the third, but was thwarted by an eventual James Frutchey save to finish the third up 7-6.

“We transitioned in a couple ways,” Spingola said. “We got out of our 10-man ride called ‘Doom.’ We were getting cooked in transition, so we had to find a way to like pack the paint, all in from the cage and try and deny them some early offensive opportunities. Offensively, we knew what we had to accomplish, we just had to find a way to communicate a little bit more in order to execute in those areas that you were able to see us showcase.”

Rivera got the Hudson lead back out to two on an assist from Grismore that ended a 14-minute scoring drought for the Raiders with 9:24 remaining in the fourth. Both teams traded goals just past the midway point in the fourth. Rivera scored again off an assist from Grismore to briefly push Hudson to a three-goal advantage, but Green answered off an assist from James to pull back within 9-7 with 5:11 left.

Mukwonago made it a one-goal game again with 2:50 remaining as Huebner scored his second off another assist by Schaefer. A Grismore goal off an assist from Rivera appeared to be the putaway score with 1:33 left, but Mukwonago had one more run. Huebner scored unassisted with a minute remaining, and after a Frutchey save with 50 seconds left, Mukwonago held for one more game-tying shot. Colton Lynch set himself up in the middle for a feed from Schaefer, who fed Lynch going left to right. Lynch fired across his body to the left corner for the game-tying goal with nine seconds on the clock.

Spingola said the comeback embodied everything he had seen in these players since they were seventh graders.

“Their tenacity, their grit, their resilience, their absolute refusal to give up in a moment of adversity,” Spingola said.

Avery Carson won the faceoff for Mukwonago to start overtime, but a Lynch shot for the win was saved by Hudson’s Preston Bakken. Hudson would possess the ball for the remainder of overtime before Tarnowski’s state-winning goal.

Schaefer was Mukwonago’s points leader with five on four assists and a goal. Huebner scored three goals, with James and Green each adding two and Motl and Lynch scoring one apiece. Frutchey saved 10 shots for a 47.6 save percentage.

Mukwonago brings back a loaded rising junior class led by Schaefer, Motl, Green and Frutchey among a host of other contributors. Senior USA Lacrosse All-American defender and Bob Scott Award winner Evan Ginsch, as well as fellow all-state first-team member Lynch and all-Classic 8 second-team honorees James, Huebner, Carson and Connor Kreger, will be among the toughest to replace.

“I know we’ve got a small senior class, but we have all the pieces that we need, so I very much look forward to March 15, 2027, when I get to see my boys again full time and get ready to go for them in the spring,” Spingola said. “[The senior class are] my superheroes. I look up to them in every which way I can, and more ways than they’ll ever understand.”

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Mukwonago falls in WIAA high school boys lacrosse state title game

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