MONROE — The Cheesemakers welcomed Stoughton into town Feb. 8 in a battle of Badger South heavyweights. One team was clearly a step ahead of the other, and it wasn’t the home team.

Stoughton (15-2, 8-1 Badger South) punched Monroe (12-4, 7-2) in the face immediately after tip-off, stringing off 22 straight points and holding the Cheesemakers scoreless on their first 15 trips up the court. Eventually, the Vikings walked out of Monroe High School with a 60-38 win while the Cheesemakers walked out with emotional black eyes.

“We had great looks, the shots just weren’t falling, plain and simple. The shots weren’t falling yesterday in practice, either, and to be honest, I was a bit nervous,” Monroe head coach Brian Bassett said.

The Cheesemakers played without top scorer Cade Meyer, and fellow starter JT Seagreaves opened the game on the bench after a team violation.

“They came out and punched us in the mouth. We didn’t play good defense and our shots weren’t falling,” guard Max Golembiewski said.

Stoughton hit nearly 50% of its shots over the first 10 minutes of the game, including three 3-pointers. In the meantime, Monroe had no answer. Guards Carson Leuzinger and Golembiewski were trying to create some offense, but the Cheesemakers came up empty one trip after another up the floor. 

“They were too big with the guys that we had out there. I think part of it was the Cade thing, and then another with JT not starting because of being late to practice. It takes two of our best offensively players off of the floor,” Bassett said. “You could tell with Carson he was trying to make something happen when nothing was working. That’s too much for one guy to overcome.”

After nearly 10 minutes of play, Monroe finally got on the board with the second of two free throws from Tyler Matley going through the cylinder to make it 22-1.

“We kind of got down and just let them keep going. We knew we had to slip it around, and from there I think we played pretty good,” said Seagreaves. After the 22-0 start, the two teams each scored 38 points.

Monroe shot just 13% from the floor in the first half (3 of 24) and trailed Stoughton 30-9 at halftime.

“I thought defensively we played really, really well after that first nine minutes. We played them dead even after that. We were really tough,” Bassett said.

In the second half, the Vikings would push the lead to as much as 27 points with 7:43 left in regulation.

The Cheesemakers showed a little bit more heart and desire after going down by 27, stringing off a slew of hustle plays and hitting some jumpers. A 14-2 run brought it back to a 15-point deficit at 50-35 with 4:22 remaining. Stoughton shut down the run, however, and both teams emptied their benches with 2:30 left in the game.

Seagreaves led Monroe in scoring with 12 points, while Golembiewski had 10. Cael McGee led Stoughton with 23.

The Cheesemakers still have a two-game lead on Watertown (9-8, 5-4) and Milton (9-8, 5-4), the two schools tied for third-place in the league standings. Monroe was set to play Oregon (6-9, 2-7) Feb. 11 and Fort Atkinson (1-8, 4-12) Feb. 14. From there, the Cheesemakers will see Freeport in a nonconference game Feb. 22, followed by a road game at Watertown Feb. 24 and then a home tilt against Milton Feb. 27.

Stoughton still has one conference game remaining this winter against Badger South team except for Monroe and Milton. For the Cheesemakers to clinch a share of the conference title, Monroe will have to win out and get some help, needing Stoughton to lose once.

And once the regular season comes to a close, there’s a good chance the two teams will meet for a rubber match — hopefully at full strength.

“We certainly know what we can do (on the court),” Golembiewski said. “The chances of us getting (Stoughton) for a third time (in the playoffs) are high. We know that we can beat them, because we have already beaten them. We know we can compete with them.”