MONROE — When two schools begin a cooperative athletics program, finding that chemistry and understanding of the playbook can take some time. Very rarely does a high school program bring two schools together and in the first year reach the state championship. Both the Argyle-Pecatonica and Albany-Monticello co-ops have the opportunity to join the exclusive club, as they each have reached the WIAA Division 5 state tournament in their first year as cooperatives.
It happened recently, with Black Hawk-Warren football in 2019. In 2018, Black Hawk won a state football title, and then joined with Warren the next season.
In softball, Juda had a reasonably successful softball team in the 2000s and early 2010s, while Albany was struggling to maintain program numbers. In 2012, the two combined. In Season 4 in 2015, the Panthers reached the state tournament, and in 2017 won the Division 4 state championship.
While some partnerships between schools have had an immediate impact, other programs have sputtered for years, but with the caveat that at least the students have a chance to continue to play a sport they love.
Regardless of on-field success or not, there is a trend taking place all over rural Wisconsin. Locally, it can be seen here in southwest Wisconsin. In recent years in the Six Rivers West, Cassville and Potosi have combined in multiple sports, including girls basketball. Shullsburg and Benton have matched with Scales Mound, Ill. for football. In the Six Rivers East, Monticello and Albany joined forces in baseball in 2018. Argyle and Pecatonica came together in girls basketball, as did Albany and Monticello. This upcoming spring, Argyle and Black Hawk will join forces in both baseball and softball.
“Co-ops are the thing of the future,” said Jen Krogman, Argyle-Pecatonica girls basketball coach. “All of these schools and (their) enrollments are down — not as many people are having kids (and) people move out of these small towns. It’s just what’s going to happen, and I think you’re going to see a lot more of them.”
Space Stallions
take flight
Monticello girls basketball has had a trying past decade. The program shut down its varsity schedule for the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons due to a lack of interest from the student body. At the same time, Albany was having struggles of its own, winning an average of about four games a year during a six-year stretch.
Doescher, the Albany athletic director and former boys head coach for 13 years, took over the Comets program in 2017 and the change in culture and expectations happened almost immediately. In his first season, they won 10 games, and in Year 2 finished 16-8. His teams have had 18 or more wins in each of the past five seasons, and last year the Comets reached its first girls basketball state appearance.
Meanwhile, Monticello had just finished a 14-8 season, but the program numbers were exceptionally low. In order to guarantee its young squad could continue to play varsity basketball, the school district reached out to Albany and ultimately struck a deal.
“I’m so happy that we got to join with this team, because this is now a reality. It’s just awesome,” said Monticello junior Molly Olson on March 2 after her team clinched its ticket to the WIAA Division 5 State Basketball Tournament.
While finding chemistry on the court took a little bit of time, the team bonded almost immediately off the court, the players said, and that included adjusting to Doescher’s playing style.
“It’s been a really easy transition,” Olson said. “He (Doescher) is real easy to listen to. He’s a very good coach. Coming into this team was so easy — they are so supportive and pick each other up. If you’re having a bad day, someone else will carry you through.”
Despite being opponents on the court last season, this year’s Albany-Monticello roster never let their personalities clash, nor were divided by internal cliques, hometown pride or let other high school drama disrupt the homeostasis in the locker room.
“It really says a lot about our co-op and the girls coming in to work every day and the connections that we’ve built together,” Durtschi said.
Doescher said he noticed right away everyone was on the same page from Day 1, and it quickly translated on the court.
“Our whole team is unselfish, and you can see it — we pass up an open shot to get our teammate a better open shot. That’s how we play, and I’m lucky to be able to coach that way, because it makes it much easier knowing there is no selfishness on this squad,” Doescher said. “To go to state for the first time in school history in your final year, and then in Year 1 of a new co-op to go to state, it’s incredible. It really is. It’s an amazing journey and I’m lucky to be a part of it, and that’s because of this great group of ladies that we have from Albany and Monticello.”
Argyle-Pecatonica forge a natural
partnership, despite skeptics
Across the conference, another cooperative formed during the 2023 offseason. Argyle and Pecatonica, friendly rivals along Wis. 78, already co-op in track and field, cross country, football, wrestling and boys golf. When both schools also saw a pattern of low participation numbers, the options were few, and a natural partnership in girls basketball was the conclusion.
“If it means giving kids an opportunity to play, I see no problem in it,” Krogman said. “We have 11 kids in the program. I would love to see more, and hopefully our success gets more kids excited.”
Argyle was coming off of a dismal 2-23 season one year after winning its first-ever regional title. Pecatonica, meanwhile, was 10-14 in the 2022-23 season. Argyle head coach Jen Krogman was named the new co-op’s head coach, and Pecatonica coach Linda Hendrickson serves as the assistant, bringing some familiarity to the players in voice and relations.
“A lot of people didn’t want this co-op in Argyle, and I thought it would be for the best. I fought for this co-op hard,” Krogman said. “There was fear of ‘Oh, those two schools don’t love each other’ and stuff like that, but these girls are so cool. I love these kids. They’re funny, they’re fun, they play hard, they’re fast, they’re smart.”
Even combined, the participation numbers are low. The program has just 11 players — five from Argyle and six from Pecatonica.
The players, however, were undeterred.
“We just know that we have to let the game come to us,” said Pecatonica senior Anna Tisch.
The meteoric rise of the Krogman-led AP co-op caught a lot of people by surprise — but not to her or those who know her. Krogman (formerly Wellnitz) was a high school star at Black Hawk under WBCA Hall of Fame coach Mike Flanagan and played at UW-Green Bay under another WBCA Hall of Famer, Kevin Borseth. In college, she learned to work hard on and off the court to earn each minute on the floor, and it paid off, as she was the Horizon League’s Defensive Player of the Year in both the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons.
When she turned to coaching, she has kept the fire, passion and competitiveness going — and it’s rubbed off on her squad.
“It’s going to force the kids to work that much harder. If you don’t have any other girls on the team, you don’t have to work that hard, because you know you’re going to play. This year, we bring more people in and it’s like a dog fight to see who actually gets to play. You have got to bring it every day,” Krogman said after her team’s win over Albany-Monticello on Feb. 6. “It sucks for the kids that have to watch the games, but man are they good teammates. This year they might not be seeing the floor as much, but they are getting the confidence in practice and they are being good teammates. Their time will come. The good news is, they are playing the second-best team in Division 5 every day in practice.”
First season journeys meet back at state
After a season-opening loss to Belleville, 52-38, the Highway 78ers ran off a win streak (26) that has yet to be stopped. While some wins came relatively easy — 16 by more than 20 points — several others made them sweat. Perhaps the biggest win for the club came on Jan. 4, when they knocked off then-second ranked Albany-Monticello by eight points. The win gave the Orioles the confidence that they could play with anyone.
“It’s a really good team atmosphere we have here. It’s not about ‘me,’ it’s about ‘we’ big time with this group. If we can keep that mentality going, we will be in good shoes,” Krogman said.
Albany-Monticello, internally nicknamed the Space Stallions, opened their season with 12 straight wins before the loss to AP. Two days later, they suffered their second loss of the year, losing at No. 3 Randolph by 13. It was the first back-to-back losses Albany had suffered since a 3-game skid at the start of the 2021-22 season.
“It’s a big difference from last year. Outside of Barneveld, we weren’t stressed very often,” Doescher said of the strength of schedule in 2022-23. “That’s why we added Randolph. We knew with the girls Argyle-Pecatonica had coming in that it would be tough. It’s good for us. It hurts. You’d like to win the conference championship, but hopefully these girls will learn from this and it will prepare us better for the tournament than it did last year.”
AM’s only other loss came on Feb. 6 at home by nine points to AP, now ranked No. 1 in Division 5.
The Orioles’s five main scoring threats on the court this season all average more than 7.5 ppg, but only one is a senior — Pecatonica’s Anna Tisch. Argyle sophomore Kylie Butler, a UWGB-recruit herself and fifth member of 1,000-point club in her household, leads AP at 22.9 ppg. Krogman’s younger sister, Brooke, an Argyle freshman, is averaging 14.9 ppg. Anna Tisch (8.1 ppg), Pecatonica sophomore Loretta Tisch (7.6 ppg) and Argyle freshman Avari Steiner (7.5 ppg) round out the top five in scoring.
Under Krogman’s guidance, the AP co-op has found its strength in its ability to lock down on defense, holding opponents to just 41 ppg and 34.1% shooting from the field. Oh yeah, they also just qualified for the state tournament. It’s the first time in the history of Argyle girls’ basketball, and Pecatonica’s sixth collectively (1992, 1993, 1994, 2001, 2002).
“I’m very proud of Jen and Argyle-Pec. I couldn’t be happier for them and our conference. It represents us very well. Two of our losses this year were to them, which are really good losses. I’m excited for Argyle-Pec and obviously excited for our program. It’s going to be a special Friday at the Resch,” Doescher said.
His Space Stallions, meanwhile, have found success late in the season with their own high-pressure defense and timely 3-point shooting. Only two teams have scored 55 points on AM all season, and the AM co-op has held teams to 10 points fewer per game than AP at 31.8 ppg.
Durtschi, a two-time Six Rivers East player of the year, leads AM at 13.5 ppg, followed by Abby Hollis (12.1), Trumpy (10.1), Molly Olson (9.8) and Anna Ellinger (6.4).
In girls basketball, Monticello’s lone trip to state was its gold ball year in 1991. Albany went last year and suffered its only defeat in the semifinal to eventual champion McDonnell Central — a private school that returned to state yet again this season up a level in Division 4.
“It’s obviously amazing and it’s literally unreal,” Monticello junior Dalana Trumpy said of making it to state. “Last year, without the co-op, we wouldn’t be in this situation. This year, with the co-op, it has really brought us all together and made it real.”
Experience at the state level is huge, regardless of what sport it’s in, Doescher said.
“For our Albany girls, they’ve been on this stage (sectional final) four years in a row. But the Monticello girls, in different sports, volleyball; Molly Olson this year went to state in cross country. They are used to a big stage and a large crowd and a lot of pressure, just in a different sport. That does pay off, and that does benefit us,” Doescher said.
Durtschi said while getting to state is exciting, the pressure of the game can be hard to handle for players in their first time there.
“State can feel overwhelming your first year, and now that we have that experience, I think we kind of know what to expect. And I think that’s really going to help us preparing and understanding what those games are going to be like,” Durtschi said.
She and basketball teammates Myah Johnson and Avari Briggs played in the WIAA state softball tournament as freshmen, finishing second at the UW-Green Bay campus. Last year the same three, along with Abby Hollis, Anna Ellinger and a few others played at the Resch Center at the state basketball tournament.
Meanwhile, Trumpy was a part of Monticello’s trip to the Resch Center for state volleyball in her freshman and sophomore seasons, and Olson ran in the WIAA state cross country race this past fall.
“I just think it’s super important to play on a team where everybody is just super-energetic. I just don’t want the season to end, especially with this team,” Briggs said.
Clashing for
the third time
The WIAA released the state tournament seeds on Sunday, where Argyle-Pecatonica and Albany-Monticello learned they would play each other in the 9:05 a.m. semifinal game on Friday, March 8. The Orioles, who have been ranked No. 1 for the final two WisSports.net Coaches Polls, earned the 1-seed, while the Space Stallions received the 4-seed. Second-seed Lena and 3-seed Clear Lake will play in the other semifinal game.
“I’m disappointed,” Doescher said. “Our girls deserved better. I felt like we were the 2- or 3-seed, 3-seed at worst.”
Of the remaining teams in the Division 5 field, AM was ranked the second-highest. AP finished first overall, AM fourth, Clear Lake eighth and Lena ninth. The Space Stallions began the season ranked No. 2 behind Assumption and dropped to No. 4 after back-to-back losses to AP and then-third-ranked Randolph. AM held that position for the final six polls.
However, the WisSports.net Coaches Poll played no factor in the WIAA electronic seeding. Instead, the following five criteria were considered — own winning percentage, opponents’ winning percentage, opponents’ opponents’ winning percentage, defeated opponents’ winning percentage and defeated opponents’ opponents’ winning percentage. The WIAA has chosen not to release the exact formula or weight of each criterion.
“I might not agree with the rankings,” Krogman said. “But the silver lining is at least one of us will come home with a ball. It speaks volumes to this part of the state.”
Since 1991, the Six Rivers has been well represented at the girls basketball state tournament. In those 34 years, a Six Rivers East or West team has qualified for the state tournament 28 times with 10 titles between the two and another 12 runner-up finishes. The only years without a Six Rivers representative are 1997, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2017.
It would have been better for the Six Rivers, Doescher said, if the two teams didn’t meet in the semifinals. Nonetheless, he and his team are proud to represent the conference.
“One of us will win the game and ensure a ball,” Doescher said. “If you want the gold ball, you have to beat the top team.”
– Natalie Dillon contributed to this story.
