Sun Prairie over Middleton

This game was a bit of a shocker as Sun Prairie came out guns blazing and never looked back. I knew Middleton had been struggling as of late but, I thought they would come to play and then when I saw that one of Sun Prairie's top players 6'5 senior Rod Johnson was not suited up for whatever reason. Not sure what's going on with Middleton right now but, after looking like world beaters early on they are really struggling right now.

Sun Prairie was just launching the threes early on and they were falling as 6'2 senior DJ Jones made his first three shots and a pair of threes by 6'1 senior Sam Kerr gave Sun Prairie a nice 14-2 lead early on and really never looked back. Throughout the entire first half Jones was hitting everything and Kerr and company chipped in when needed. For Middleton nothing was going right. Middleton's three headed junior monster was terrible to put it bluntly. 5'11 Storm Murphy couldn't buy shot, 6'0 CJ Fermanich seemed to lose the handle every time he drove and turned the ball over, and 6'4 Tyree Eady was getting out in transition but, the layups just weren't falling. Outside of the big three there just wasn't much else from anyone and there was no energy on their side. Sun Prairie had the backing of the crowd and they really rode the energy wave. At half Sun Prairie was up nine.

In the second half Sun Prairie extended their lead to 16 at one point before Middleton trimmed it to 10 with about 10 minutes left in the game before some late threes cut the lead to six at one point and Sun Prairie extended it to get the double digit win. Fermanich hit three second half threes and Eady hit a pair but, the calming influence of Kerr on the other end led to Sun Prairie hanging on. Big highlights of the night were a couple nice dunks by 6'5 Sun Prairie senior DeShawn Black in the post and a nice drive spin move and and one from Kerr.

Top Players
Brogan Brunker 6'4 sophomore Middleton- Only guy on Middleton that really brought any energy. Brunker came off the bench and battled in the post and did most of his damaged on the glass and from the free throw line.

CJ Fermanich 6'0 junior Middleton- Struggled early on but, hit the three late in the game and actually did a pretty good job rebounding from the guard position.

DJ Jones 6'2 senior Sun Prairie- Really shot the ball extremely well in the first half as he combined with Kerr to carry the team in the first half. Struggled in the second half and didn't play a ton.

Sam Kerr 6'1 senior Sun Prairie- Had the outside shot going early on hitting some big threes and then in the second half was the calming factor running the point, hitting free throws, and was also able to get to the lane and score.

Box Score
Middleton 53- Fermanich 15 Eady 14 Brunker 10 Murphy 7 Jack Smith 4 Kevin Ripp 3 Cody Markel 0 Travis Raffel 0 Brady Thomas 0 Cam Maly 0 Myron Ashford Jr 0 Daydrian Spears 0
Sun Prairie 64- Kerr 22 Jones 17 Black 7 Marlon Ruffin 7 Sean Suchomel 5 Ben Hauser 4 Nate Verstegen 2 Marty Strey 0

This really makes things interesting in the Big Eight conference. I thought the Middleton lose would give Madison Memorial the lead in the conference but, of course they lost to Madison West setting up the three way tie between Memorial, Middleton, and Sun Prairie. Saturday Memorial and Middleton play, all three have to play Janesville Craig, Middleton has to play West, and Sun Prairie also has Madison East so things will be very interesting. Frankly I wouldn't be completely shocked to wind up with a four way tie with East being thrown into the mix.