BELLEVILLE — Two years ago, the Sugar River girls soccer team reached the WIAA state tournament for the second time and lost in the championship game to Waukesha Catholic Memorial. This year, both teams are in the final four of the WIAA Division 3 playoff, with Catholic Memorial set to face Rice Lake at 4:30 p.m. Friday and Sugar River to follow against Green Bay Notre Dame. 

All state games are played at Uihlein Soccer Park in Milwaukee.

“I think there is the possibility to build some good memories, whether we win or lose — memories that we can pause later on and will bring us joy,” Sugar River head coach John Ziperski said. “It’s something I didn’t do the first year we did this in 2004, and it was a miserable experience. I promised if we ever made it back, we’d make sure it was a good experience regardless of the score.”

Catholic Memorial has won six consecutive state titles between Division 2 and 3, and this is Green Bay’s 10th trip since 2001.

The Raiders hold a secret ingredient that’s not counted on the stat sheet. An ingredient that they hope will help bring home some hardware.

“We’ve got team chemistry, and we are all really close friends,” senior Kalin O’Rourke said. “And I feel like that’s a difference maker, too, because we all get along and know how to pick each other up.”

To understand how things may unfold for Sugar River, first we need to look at …

Where they’ve been

For the first 19 games of the season, the Sugar River Raiders have won 18. The outlier was a 2-2 nonconference tie to Mount Horeb in the sixth game of the season. The Raiders defeated the Vikings in the sectional semifinal nearly six weeks later, 3-2.

“Our season started off a little rocky. We had a lot to tune up,” said O’Rourke, who leads the team with 26 goals. “As the season went on, we came together as a team. We know how to play with each other and make things work.”

The Raiders coasted through the Capitol Conference regular season, with only a few games where Sugar River was challenged: a 2-0 win over Columbus April 30, a 2-0 win over Lodi May 1 and a 3-1 win over Division 4 state qualifier Wisconsin Heights-Barneveld May 17. That’s where a tough nonconference schedule comes into play.

“Most of the Capitol is Division 4,” Ziperski said. “I think Wisconsin Heights is a quality group and I think that they are maybe going to surprise people in D-4, and Lodi has been a quality group too.”

Ziperski likes to not only schedule tough opponents but keep old rivalries alive in the nonconference slate.

“A lot of our nonconference games are against teams that were in the Capitol Conference at one time — McFarland, Mount Horeb, Evansville,” he said. “I like keeping those teams on the schedule. They are all quality groups that went to another conference. We also like to cherry-pick a couple teams that will be strong competition that we can do something with that might help prepare us for the tougher games, and the rivalries like the Monroe’s, and then we’ll pick some confidence games for our younger players to get some varsity reps in.”

Nonconference wins over Monroe, DeForest, McFarland and Stoughton helped toughen up the Raiders for the physical play of an extended postseason run. Teams like Mount Horeb, which Sugar River beat 3-2 in a sectional semifinal June 7, and Madison Edgewood (1-0 in the sectional final June 9) play a physical game where bodies hit the turf much more often than in a typical Capitol match.

“We’re not as physical as some of those bigger teams,” O’Rourke said. “That’s not our style of play. It’s really quick and fast-paced, and it makes it easy to use our speed and skill instead of physicality to outplay them.”

When the postseason started, Sugar River, which was ranked No. 8 in the state in the final Wisconsin Soccer Coaches Association Division 3 poll of the season, drew a No. 2 seed. 

“In the seeding meetings, they talk about strength of conference and such, but I think it’s more important as to how you build your team over the year — from where you are at the beginning to where you are at the end,” Ziperski said. “You want to make sure you’re improving, and that means finding some of those challenges along the way.”

In the first round of the playoffs, the Raiders smacked 15-seed Adams-Friendship 11-0 and then took care of Evansville 3-0 in the regional final. That set up the rematch with Mount Horeb, in which Sugar River took a 3-0 lead before clinging to the 3-2 victory.

“We didn’t really think about the state tournament at the beginning of the season. As we got closer and closer, I think we all thought, ‘Wow, we can actually do this,’” O’Rourke said. 

Edgewood (15-3-2, No. 3) was the top-seeded team in the sectional and put forth a vicious fight. The two teams ran to a 0-0 tie after the first half, and a corner kick goal by Sam Trainor gave the Raiders the only goal of the game. The Crusaders kept the pressure up on offense, but Sugar River used the extra space to make deep runs and keep Edgewood on its heels.

“Everything just kind of came together in the last few games against Mount Horeb and Edgewood,” O’Rourke said. “Going into the sectional final, we were all really nervous. And our coach just said that we had nothing to lose. We were there to knock off the top-ranked team, so just go out there and do what we do. And all of us just really came together.”

Days later, the jubilation of returning to state was still resonating on the practice field.

“I think it set in a couple of days ago. I know a couple of us are still pretty psyched,” junior goalkeeper Rachel Heittola said Tuesday.

While the struggles of the postseason have made the Raiders stronger, all that matters is what’s …

Coming up next

Green Bay Notre Dame (15-5-1, No. 2) averages more than five goals a game in the Fox River Classic Conference, one of the toughest leagues top-to-bottom in the state. In fact, the Tritons finished third behind Bay Port and Sheboygan North. Both teams are playing today in the Division 1 state semifinals.

“There’s a lot of teams that would love to be in our spot, so we’re not going to pity ourselves because we have to play a tough opponent,” Ziperski said. “We’re going to go out there and give it everything we’ve got.”

Two of Notre Dame’s losses came to Chicago-area private schools St. Francis (Wheaton, Illinois) and St. Viator (Arlington Heights, Illinois). The other three losses were to Brookfield Central (Division 2 state qualifier), Sheboygan North and Bay Port.

“(Notre Dame) has an incredible team. They have a couple D-1 prospects and their offense is prolific. They hang their hat on their offense, and we hang our hat on our defense,” Ziperski said. “Hopefully it will be a competitive game and we won’t feel like we are backed and bunkered in in any way. We want to find opportunities to compete with them.”

The winner of Friday’s 7 p.m. semifinal will play either Rice Lake (9-9-3) or six-time defending champion Catholic Memorial (20-2-2, No. 1).

“Knowing that we have to get over one titan to get to the next — I haven’t even thought about the next day. We’re going to take it one day at a time,” Ziperski said.

Rice Lake limped into the postseason, winning just two of its final 11 games of the regular season, with two ties thrown in there. But the Warriors have found a way to win four straight games — all by one goal — to reach the state tournament. Rice Lake vanquished Rhinelander 2-1 in the sectional final June 9 to complete the journey.

“(Rice Lake) is from a really tough conference in the northwest — Eau Claire Memorial, River Falls and some other big schools,” Ziperski said. “Their record is not really indicative of the type of team they are, but I do feel that the Madison and Milwaukee areas have tougher levels of soccer.”

Catholic Memorial is at the opposite end of the spectrum. The Crusaders lost to Kimberly in the second game of the season and fell to Brookfield Central in Game 4. Since April 20, the state’s top-ranked team has put together 18 wins and tied just once — in the regular season final against Divine Savior Holy Angels.

“It’s sort of like David and Goliath,” Ziperski said of the Rice Lake-Catholic Memorial matchup. 

For now, the Raiders are soaking up the opportunity to practice one more week together for one more guaranteed game (and, they hope, a second). 

“For me, I’m trying to tell myself that this could be my last game with these awesome seniors. And I want to keep playing with them, but unfortunately, I can’t,” Heittola said.

After Saturday, however, it’s all over.

“It hasn’t really hit me yet,” O’Rourke said. “But I’m just really thankful to make it to state because we’re one of the only 16 teams that get to keep practicing. 

“I feel like this is the best team and the closest group of girls I’ve played with in high school. I’m just happy we get this final time to get to play together,” she said.