MONROE — The Cheesemakers lost their first conference game of the season Jan. 16 at Milton, then turned right around and knocked off Watertown the following night to keep command of the top spot in the Badger South standings.

Milton (7-5, 4-3 Badger South) outscored Monroe (10-2, 6-1) by 16 in the second half of the Red Hawks’ 97-84 win Jan. 16. Without getting down on themselves, the Cheesemakers rallied the very next evening with a roller-coaster 59-56 win at home over the Goslings.

“Coming off that tough loss last night, but I’m glad we could get that bad taste out of our mouths,” Monroe senior Logan Leuzinger said.

While the Red Hawk loss featured loads of offense, the win over Watertown (6-7, 3-4) was a mix of overcoming mistakes and closing the game in gritty fashion.

“The biggest thing is finding a way to win — that’s what we’re all about,” said Brian Bassett, Monroe head coach.

Jack Campion poured 38 points for Milton in the Red Hawks’ win over the Cheesemakers. Campion added 11 assists and teammate Samuel Burdette had 26 points and eight rebounds. Monroe led Milton 45-42 at halftime, but the Red Hawks outscored Monroe by 16 in the second half, nearly reaching the century-mark in points.

Carson Leuzinger led the Cheesemakers with 24 points, while Cade Meyer finished with 21, JT Seagreaves 18, Max Golembiewski 15 and Tyler Matley six.

With a game the very next night, Monroe’s coaches wanted to treat the stretch as a preparation for regional playoffs, when the regional semifinal and final are on back-to-back nights.

The Cheesemakers responded well from the opening minute until the close against the Goslings — all while letting a near-double-digit lead disappear completely in the second half.

“We just had to fight through some adversity. We had a little trouble trying to run our offense and get the looks that we usually get. It threw us off of our game, and we had to get back into it — it started on defense,” said Seagreaves, a sophomore.

Watertown likes to shoot the ball from deep — the first four Gosling field goals were all from downtown. Despite getting down 14-9, Monroe continuously tried to work the ball inside as much as possible. 

The movement of the offense is designed to catch the defense in a disadvantage for either an open layup or jump shot. On a couple of possessions, the Cheesemakers did just that.

Max Golembiewski hit back-to-back 3s and then added a floating jumper in the lane for an 8-point burst that tied the game at 14. JT Seagreaves then found Caleb Bunker in the post for a bucket to give Monroe a 16-14 lead at the 11:16 mark of the first half — a 10-2 run in just an 83-second stretch.

Watertown then took control over the next five minutes of play, regaining a three-point lead at 23-20 with 6:50 left before halftime.

Logan Leuzinger came in off the bench and for a brief couple of moments, put the team on his back. Logan is a hard-working senior that grinds the floor on every play, finding minutes off the bench in a role as wile veteran under control — and not flashy with the ball, unlike his sophomore brother Carson. 

But against Watertown, the elder Leuzinger took advantage of his opportunities on offense. First, he drove hard for a unique-looking left-handed layup. On the next possession he hit a jumper from the left elbow that gave Monroe the lead at 24-23. A minute later he drove to the paint, drawing the foul and knocking down both free throws.

“We were just cold coming into the first part of the game and I was just trying to do everything I could to try and make things happen,” Logan Leuzinger said.

Leuzinger’s spark helped Monroe pull ahead by six at halftime.

“We always want to go into half with that advantage. We hadn’t been doing very well, and it was good to get those points up there,” said Logan.

Bassett was proud of his senior for stepping up the way that he did.

“He didn’t want to lose; he refuses to lose. He took it really hard last night when we did lose. He was really upset, but he wasn’t going to talk about it — he showed he was going to lead when he got his body out there and do whatever he had to do to score,” Bassett said.

Watertown opened the second half as a team on a mission, while the Cheesemakers appeared to be stunned. After a Cade Oiler 3 opened the second half, Seagreaves turned the ball over on the next possession and was pulled to the bench. Seagreaves has had a hot shooting hand as of late, but his recent turnover struggles forced Bassett and staff to sit their young forward for a stretch.

“They just talked to me about making the easy plays and not trying to force anything,” Seagreaves said.

The turnover troubles were not just on Seagreaves, however. Monroe gave the ball away 11 times in the first half and 18 in the game.

“What we talked about is that I feel like we have an NBA shot clock at times — our guys are going way to fast and think they have to score in the first 10 seconds after one or two passes,” Bassett said. “I told them at halftime to stop trying to make the great play, and instead make the simple play. We were trying to make that big splash — but we don’t need to make those big splashes to win. Make the simple play. We can just run our offense over and over and over again. You can’t throw it in from the top of the key on the first pass — it’s not open. We have to keep reversing it until it does open up.”

Monroe led 42-39 with 13:43 left in regulation when the Goslings rang off a 13-0 run over the next five minutes. Seagreaves re-entered the game and with 8:39 left drove the baseline to break the Watertown scoring binge. The two sides traded buckets on the next two possessions, but then Monroe took the game over completely.

“We had to take a minute and just stop and think about what we had to do on defense to make a run,” said Seagreaves, who had three big rebounds in the final stretch. “I felt like I kind of worked through what was going on with my game and finished strong.”

The Cheesemakers outscored the Goslings 15-2 over the final eight minutes to seal the win.

Seagreaves led Monroe with 15 points — including 12 in the first half. Meyer finished with 12 and Golembiewski had 10. Carson Leuzinger scored six points — all in the second half.

Up next for the Cheesemakers is another back-to-back set — this time a Jan. 24 road game at Milwaukee Bay View (6-5, opened the season ranked No. 2 in Division 2), followed by a rematch with Waunakee (11-2) at the Badger Challenge at Edgewood the next night. Waunakee defeated Monroe by nine points in the second game of the season on Dec. 5.

“That’s going to be a lot different — it’s chaos, is what that offense is,” Bassett said of Bay View. “We’re not really sure if they run an offense, but they are very, very talented and all they do is play Division 1 schools all year. They are probably licking their chops to finally get to play against somebody that’s their own size.”