Union Grove earns No. 1 seed in WIAA playoffs
By Tim Wester
Sports Correspondent
If there ever was a week for the Union Grove girls basketball team to flex its muscle, it was last week.
After winning a Southern Lakes Conference showdown with Wilmot, the Broncos extended their winning streak to 11 games, earned a No. 1 seed in a WIAA Division 2 playoffs, and watched their senior captain Janelle Shiffler become just the fourth player in school history to score 1,000 points.
Not bad at all.
“When we lost a couple of early conference games, it forced us to develop a playoff mentality where every conference game became a must-win game,” Union Grove Rob Domagalski said. “We responded so well to the challenge and find ourselves in position to win another conference title.”
The Broncos can indeed clinch a share of the Southern Lakes for the third straight season with a victory over rival Waterford Thursday. They can clinch an outright title with a win and a Wilmot loss at Burlington.
The Grove’s three-year conference dominance is a credit to good coaching and good players, led by Shiffler, who eclipsed the 1,000–point threshold during an 82-41 victory at Elkhorn Friday, Feb. 10.
“It’s such a huge accomplishment and reflection of her hard work ethic, especially after scoring just 52 points in her freshman season,” said Domagalski, who has watched three Bronco players score at 1,000 points in the past 10 years. “As she has gotten older, she has developed into a great leader.”
Shiffler’s leadership was on display against the Elks as all 11 Broncos scored points in the contest, led by junior Brooklyn Bull’s game-high 21 points. The balanced attack helped the Broncos jump out to a 47-23 halftime lead and never look back, en route to the 41-point victory.
“Give credit to Elkhorn because they’ve improved and the final score doesn’t indicate how hard they played,” Domagalski said. “We did a good job against Elkhorn of rotating the basketball and getting good shots.”
The Broncos will need to continue their offensive onslaught Thursday against Waterford in the Grove’s final regular season home game of the season.
“We’re just concentrating on Waterford and becoming conference champions, which is a big deal to us,” Domagalski said. “We only can play one game at a time, so we can’t overlook anyone, especially with the playoffs around the corner.”
Keeping focus on the task at hand will be a challenge for the Broncos, who have a very similar bracket to last season when they fell just a basket short of upsetting Stoughton and advancing to the program’s first-ever trip to Madison.
The Broncos could potentially get a sectional final rematch with the Vikings on the very same court in Middleton. Union Grove will have to first get past the Delavan-Darien/Fort Atkinson winner at home on Feb 24.
From there, the Broncos face Burlington and Wilmot in consecutive games. Both teams defeated the Broncos once in conference play and could be tough matchups.
That would set up the potential rematch, assuming Stoughton can get through a tough bracket that includes Monroe and DeForest.
“The playoffs are tough because it’s one and done,” Domagalski said. “We are good enough to make a run at regionals and sectional, but so are a lot of other teams. We can take anyone for granted and have to play at our best to make another deep run this season.”
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