MONROE — The ascent of Carson Leuzinger’s skills are only matched by the ascent of his on-court leadership. That make’s Monroe boys basketball coach Brian Bassett pleased.

“I’m really excited to see his progression from last year to the beginning of this year to where he’s at right now. He’s playing at a really high level,” Bassett said of his sophomore guard after the Cheesemakers’ 61-47 win over Fort Atkinson Feb. 14. “He’s really confident right now, which is fantastic. You want to have someone who is confident as a point guard, because they are going to have the ball a ton.”

Leuzinger dropped a game-high 21 points on the Blackhawks, including 12 in the second half. It was the second straight game that the sophomore guard simply took over when Monroe needed it most. In an overtime win over Oregon three days before, Leuzinger scored seven straight points in the final 42 seconds to send the game into overtime — a contest the Cheesemakers would eventually win.

“When it’s close and games are tight, I like to take control. My teammates trust me to make the play, and my coaches trust me to make the play, so I just go out and do it,” Leuzinger said.

It was slow going early on for both Monroe (14-4, 9-2) and Fort Atkinson (5-13, 2-9). The Blackhawks led 5-4 three minutes into the game, but JT Seagreaves drove the baseline at the 14:05 mark to give the Cheesemakers the lead for good. Seagreaves’ hoop also sparked an 8-0 Monroe run that looked like it would bury the Blackhawks, except the opposite would prove to be true. Fort Atkinson would stick around much of the rest of the way, including tying the score late in the second half.

“In the first half we had a lot of turnovers and let them back into the game. At halftime, the coaches talked to us about what had to do to fix it,” Leuzinger said.

The Blackhawks tied it at 44 with 5:47 to play, having outscored the Cheesemakers 12-3 over a five-minute stretch. Leuzinger had scored all 21 of his points by that time, but as a whole, the Cheesemakers recovered and ended the game on a 17-3 run.

“We get a little too loose once in a while. A lot of credit to (Fort). They’re defensive pressure after we got that lead really turned up. We made some unforced errors, I thought. I didn’t mind those unforced errors because we were looking for guys going back door,” Bassett said. 

Those attempts at going back-door paid off down the stretch, however. Finding that extra pass was key to the strong finish. The tie was broken when Cade Meyer found Seagreaves for a 3 from the left corner. Seagreaves then buried a pair of bonus free throws on the next possession. Meyer, returning after missing a pair of contests, scored on a foul in the paint and hit the free throw to make it 52-44. 

Leuzinger then found Max Golembiewski for a 3 on the next possession to make it an 11-0 run, forcing Fort Atkinson to call a timeout.

“I thought we had some really quality possessions tonight; I thought we had some really good looks. If you look at our shot chart, we really didn’t force anything from the outside. We did a really great job of getting the ball inside and a lot of inside-out looks,” Bassett said. “It was great to see JT knock some shots down tonight, because he is a knock-down shooter. I thought his teammates set him up well.”

The stretch extended further with Meyer involved on a pair of extra-pass plays. First, the 6-foot-8 sharpshooter was mid-jumper from the elbow when he instead dished to a streaking Tyler Matley, who hit the easy layup instead. On the following possession, Golembiewski took two hard dribbles toward the hoop, only to pull up and feed Meyer, who threw down an emphatic towering one-handed slam while streaking through the paint, making it 59-44 with 1:12 left on the clock.

“That pass that Cade Meyer had at the end of the game where he turned around to shoot it and all of a sudden hit Matley back-door; if we can do stuff like that, we’ll be really tough,” Bassett said.

Meyer and Golembiewski each finished with eight points, while Matley had seven and Seagreaves 11. Caleb Bunker added six in the first half. Greyson Wixom led Fort with 17 points.

“Bunker had a huge first half, scoring those points for us,” Bassett said. “All the guys that got in the game tonight played at a really high level. They’ve all elevated their games. One thing about our reserves are that they are really good defenders because they have to play against our first five all the time in practice. They usually do a really good job at it.”

Matley’s seven came via a first half 3-pointer and a pair of second half drives. The energetic sixth-man tries to be as versatile as he can for the coaching staff, which includes guarding opponents of all heights despite being 6-0. Matley can normally be seen deflecting the ball and diving for every loose ball while checked into the game.

“It just comes down to effort. I’m not 6-foot-5, 6-foot-8, I can’t go up and dunk everything — but I can box people out and work hard to get rebounds and easy layups,” Matley said. “I work really hard in practice and make sure I know all of my plays. I’m always willing to fill in and guard whoever they want. I feel that I’m versatile enough to guard anyone on the court.”

As far as shooting is concerned, Matley said it’s a work in progress, and that his recent success (seven points or more in three of his last four games) has brought him some confidence to shoot the rock almost at will.

“I haven’t really been much of a shooter in my basketball career, but I have been working on it more. I just feel a little bit more confident with it right now,” Matley said.

Also lifting the spirits of the Cheesemakers after the game was news that Stoughton (16-3, 9-2) lost to Watertown (11-8, 7-4) 48-46. The Vikings loss means Monroe and Stoughton are tied at the top of the Badger South standings with three games to play. The Cheesemakers have conference road games at Edgewood (8-11, 5-6) and Watertown over the final two weeks of the season, with the regular season finale at home against Milton (10-9, 6-5) Feb. 27. Monroe also has a nonconference makeup game at Freeport Feb. 22.

“We just have to take care of business. We’ve got three conference games left and they are all important for seedings. We have to try to go out there and win them all,” Leuzinger said.