Demons win 10th straight, playoffs start Friday
By Mike Ramczyk
Correspondent
It was a classic case of a tale of two halves.
On Thursday, Feb. 27, at Burlington High School, the Demons honored seniors Dylan Runkel, Ryan Koeppen, Jake Klug and Logan Swantz in their last regular season home games.
After a first half that saw Southern Lakes bottom dweller Lake Geneva Badger get hot, Burlington poured on its recent formula of outside shooting, stellar defense and strong inside play to capture its 10th straight victory, 64-39, continuing its red-hot momentum into the WIAA postseason.
The second-seeded Demons open playoff basketball at home against either Union Grove or Fort Atkinson Friday night.
Joey Berezowitz led the Demons with 22 points, and Dane Kornely added 18, including a thunderous slam dunk in the second half, to help Burlington pull away.
“We came together,” Runkel said after the game. “We were kind of stagnant at the beginning of the game, so we came back and fought back in the second half.”
Badger closed the first half with an impressive 13-3 run, but Burlington stormed out with a 23-6 run to open the second half.
A breakaway dunk by Kornely made it 55-35 with 4:30 left, and the Demons were in cruise control.
Burlington coach Steve Berezowitz was impressed the Demon defense only allowed 12 points in the second half.
“I don’t think we had enough energy in the first five minutes of the game,” he said. “It was uncharacteristic that we gave up 10 offensive rebounds in the first half. We talked at halftime about cleaning some of that up and being more efficient on the offensive end.”
“We played better in the second half. We did a better job of dictating what they were going to get. We settled down on offense and decided what we were going to get. Kornely’s dunk gave us a boost. The defensive end was where it started.”
For Klug and Koeppen, it was special to win on Senior Night.
“It meant everything,” Klug said. “Ever since I could dribble a basketball, I’ve thought of Senior Night. It meant a lot that the underclassmen gave it their all.”
“There are a lot of people that were doubting us because of our injuries,” Koeppen said. “It feels really good to close it out with 10 straight. We flipped the conference in the second half, and it shows what we can actually do.”
Burlington canned a few triples to build a 33-29 lead before a flurry of offense from Berezowitz and a Danny Kniep layup made it 40-31 with 10:50 left.
Then, Kornely added a triple, and Runkel dunked on a Badger player to extend the lead to 47-33.
Kornely’s slam dunk, his first in a game, was the exclamation point.
So what has been the difference for the Demons, who haven’t lost a game since Jan. 17?
“We finally started to enjoy playing together as a team,” Swantz said. “Our practices got a lot better, which is a huge part of it.”
“The streak has to continue now, because we’re in the playoffs,” Berezowitz said. “We don’t really care about the seed. We’ve lost three of our top seven guys, so let’s not put pressure on ourselves and see what happens.”
“I’m really happy that some guys have stepped into roles.”
Koeppen believes the Demons can make some noise in the playoffs.
“I knew we were capable of doing this,” Klug added. “I feel good going into the playoffs, and I feel like we can beat anybody.”
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