Steve’s Cheers and Jeers

Together Brown Deer sprinters Justin Austin and Kaya Senaya have 12 WIAA state Division 2 track titles and four division records.

Senaya has also posted the fastest 100-meter time ever by a Wisconsin girl when she turned in an 11.78 second-clocking at a Junior Olympics meet last summer.

Both have secured high-profile NCAA Division I scholarship offers, Austin to Kentucky and Senaya to Wisconsin.

So what are the motivations of these two once-in-a-lifetime athletes as they approach their final WIAA State Meet in La Crosse on Friday and Saturday, May 30 and 31?

To be known as the best in the division anyone has ever known.

"I still want the records," Austin said. "That's what I'm praying for. That's what I've been working for. Man, I can't believe I'm already a senior. It's all gone by so fast I can hardly remember that trip four years ago (when he was part of a record-setting 400 relay team)."

Both Austin and Senaya will defend their titles in the 100 and 200 dashes and anchor their respective 400 relay teams (the girls are defending champions). They will also compete in the long jump. Austin will enter healthy after an injury-plagued junior campaign, while Senaya is running her best times of the year after battling illness and back problems.

"I'm the defending champ and I would like to finish my career as a champion," Senaya said. "Other people's opinions don't really concern me all that much at this point, so I'm going to do what I need to make myself and the team successful."

And success is on the minds of a lot of North Shore, Menomonee Falls and Germantown area athletes as they enter the annual test.

Among the most compelling, is three-time state runner-up Kate Lydy in Germantown. the senior earned silver medals in the state 1,600 last spring and then book-ended that with a similar finish in state cross country last fall. She, like last year is doing a heady triple with the 1,600 and 3,200 open races and the 3,200 relay on her docket. The school-record relay will be the seventh-fastest going into state and she has the fourth-fastest 3,200 time, but like last year, she'll have to sneak a top slot in the 1,600 coming out of the slow heat. Warhawk assistant coach Andy Bavlnka is known for training his athletes very hard in the regular season and bringing them down for a fast taper like Lydy's exceptional 1,600 time last season. Competitors would be unwise to look past her.

A similar story is coming out of Whitefish Bay. A year ago, Megan Palmer took the state by storm with a great cross country season and a solid track campaign. Last fall, she helped lead the Blue Dukes cross country team to a heart-breakingly close runner-up finish at state but the end of her campaign was marked by fatigue and slightly sub-par (only by her extremely high standards) performances in the sectional and state runs

She has come back in track with a vengeance  this spring, looking fresh as a daisy, using a devastating kick to dominant opponents in the 800 and 1,600 races. She will look to lead the school-record (and that's saying something) Blue Duke 3,200 relay to a medal as well as earning a medallion herself in the 800, where she has the second-fastest time going in.

"We're going to taper a little and then get ready to finish strong," said the mature-beyond-her-years sophomore. "We're ready to go."

Also ready to go and breathing a sign of relief is the boys 800 relay team at Menomonee Falls. The Indians have had an amazing record of success in the event since 2003. They've posted superior sub-1:30 times in five of the six seasons (four of which have landed in the state's all-time top 50) and have earned three state meet medals for their efforts, but going into last week's sectional meet at Germantown, the Indian relay has also had disconcertingly bad luck at sectionals in even numbered years, not being able to finish races due to bad hand-offs.

But the Falls team anchored by three-event state qualifier and two-time medalist Washington Farrington broke the jinx last week at sectional by using safe but aggressive passes to finish with the state's second-best time (only behind peerless Milwaukee Vincent). Both Farrington and Indian relay ace Mark Van Alstyne noted that coaches never told them of the bad karma surrounding the even-numbered years but still grinned at their good fortune.

Falls coach Mike Burling said he's debating whether to try and stretch the passes further in an effort to pass Vincent. He's unsure whether it would be worth the effort, losing out on a chance at any kind of medal with a mistake.

Meanwhile, Indian girls hurdler Cally Burrows is hoping to improve on last year's state runner-up finish in the 300 lows. But to do that she'll have to beat her old friend and barrier-busting equal Lindsay Schwartz of Watertown, who beat her in both the highs and the lows at the sectional meet last week. Burrows has a 2-1 advantage in 300 hurdle races against Schwartz this season, but the tall and motivated Schwartz is making a heavy play for state female athlete of the year after posting the best times in the state in both hurdle races and anchoring the Goslings' 1,600 relay to the top seed going into Friday's heats. Just for fun, she's also advanced in the high jump.

One fun story to watch include watching siblings Lauren and Justin Barber of Homestead compete in the weights this weekend. Big sister Lauren is a multi-time state qualifier and has the third-best effort in the shot put going into Friday's festivities. But little brother (in age only) Justin surprised everyone by coming up with a runner-up sectional toss in the discus to earn his own state berth.

There was no open discussion of sibling rivalry, but later Justin was heard to say something to the effect of "Hey, I'm just trying to keep up with her!" 

On a more serious note, injuries are part of life at state-qualifying time, crushing many dreams, making many re-assess their goals. To that end, the swift Nicolet girls sprint squad is being forced to put all its eggs in one very quick and pretty basket. The third-seeded 800 relay team anchored by Roni Thompson was to have been joined by the equally quick 400 crew, but at sectional, a faulty hand-off at the end led to its demise. That's a real disappointment for Thompson, who was having a sensational season before a recent groin pull slowed her down. Coach Mike McKenna said that Thompson has been fighting gamely through the injury, but noted that accomodations have had to be made.

The Knights under McKenna, have earned at least one medal in the last eight state meets. A ninth straight year, especially with a relay team crowding the awards stand, would be a welcome sight to him.

A feel-good story was how exuberent Germantown boys track coach Todd Brawner was after his senior-laden squad saw not one, not two, but three relay teams reel in state berths under the qualifying gun thanks in part to determined anchor runs by Kyle Sich. The Warhawks had been the 800-pound gorilla of the North Shore for the better part of this decade before being supplanted by Homestead and Port Washington this year. But they flew under the radar at the sectional and earned six state berths, including a stunning third by Dexter Schleis in the 300 intermediate hurdles. Dexter is the younger brother of former state high hurdle champ Adam Schleis and when he surged across the line in third, Brawner bounced across the infield as fast as he could hugging everyone in sight.

It was a rare display of raw emotional release that few people had ever seen out of the veteran coach, whose grin was as wide as the setting sun that evening.

It's a feeling that no doubt many in La Crosse this weekend will try to bottle and unleash at just the right moment.

Reporters have a love/hate relationship with the long-term success of any athletic program on any level.

On first glance, you love the consistency, the standard of excellence that is set and the glowing historical references to teams past and present it elicits.

But on the other hand, it can get boring after a time, with the luster of repeated success straining and dulling the vocabulary and the imagination of even the most literate of my lot.

And not that I have even the vaguest of ill-wishes against the Germantown boys track team, the Homestead boys golf squad or the Homestead or Whitefish Bay girls soccer teams, but the fact that those long-term success stories did not walk away with league titles this spring, as they have grown accustomed to, is a marker of the growth of other programs in the area.

Of progress.

That's because the other teams have seen these legendary programs' dominance as a tool to fuel their own fire, and as a result they were able to blow some fresh air into potentially stagnant situations. And what was even more refreshing was the sense of perspective and history that came from the mouths of those replaced at the top.

In boys track, first Homestead and Port Washington tied at the league relays meet to end Germantown's five-plus year lock on North Shore Conference events and then Port edged Homestead to officially crown a new king in the league outdoor two weeks ago.

 "We actually had an OK meet," Germantown coach Todd Brawner said of the league outdoor. "It's just that over the years, we always had so much depth, it was like a chorus line. I know we're a little bit on the back-end of all that, but I still love these kids. It's a little disappointing of course, but I've had more fun personally than I've had in a long time and the kids have had fun too."

About the same time, Whitefish Bay ended Homestead's decade-plus lock on the league golf crown, though the inexperienced Highlanders did prevent the Blue Dukes from recording a perfect sweep of league meets this season by stealing away with their 16th straight North Shore 18-hole finale title.

"We actually have an incredible team," Highlander coach Steve O'Brien said. "Our team GPA could wipe out almost anybody elses and they've just been a coaches' dream. But we never compare one team to the next. The history itself is nice to look at but that's all it is, history. We don't try to add onto the pressure the kids are already feeling themselves. We just try to improve and get better."

And getting better is something that the Germantown girls soccer team has been doing for quite some time now, as with a recent 1-0 victory over defending state champion Homestead, the Germantown girls soccer team made history for the school as it earned the first-ever league title in the sport for either a boys or girls squad.

In this particular instance, the grateful attitude of winning co-coach Steve Sperl is instructive. The win over Homestead clinched a tie for the title for the Warhawks. An inspired rout of Grafton a week later gave Germantown a perfect run through the league race and sent the nine-person senior class out as ultimate winners. Gave them the chance to feel the same joy that had previously belonged only to a select few.

"We worked to make sure we finished what we started," Sperl said. "Homestead is still Homestead and they haven't dropped a level. And this game (over Grafton) was very neat. The kids understood what it meant to go 7-0 (in conference) to be outright champs for the first time. They wanted to start something completely new."

And with the shine of their titles still bright in the spring sun, you won't hear talk of empire from these newly-minted title holders, because they know how tough it is to win just one of these things. They know how good the competition is in the North Shore.

"We want to win it, no doubt about that," Bay golf coach Dave Johnson said, "but we want it to be competitive. ..We've always had a lot of good, strong players in this league and we don't root against other players. We want to win against good competition, because no one wins if other teams (in the league) are floundering."