Bangor boys headed to state championship
MADISON — Grant Manke and Caleb Miedema scored a combined 35 points for the Bangor High School boys basketball team on Friday in the WIAA state semifinal.
Green Bay N.E.W. Lutheran scored 31.
With a 73-31 win at the Kohl Center, the No. 2-ranked Cardinals (26-1) move on to Saturday’s 11:05 a.m. Division 5 state championship against McDonnell Central Catholic.
Unranked McConnell (18-10) defeated No. 7-ranked Deerfield 56-46.
Listen to the state championship on WKTY 96.7 FM / 580 AM or stream online by clicking the LISTEN tab at the top of the page.
If the Cardinal boys win, it will be just the seventh time in Wisconsin history a boy and girls team has won a state title from the same high school, after the girls won last week. Bangor’s football team also won a state title.
If the boys win, it would only be the second time in history a football and basketball team have won a state title in the same year from the same high school.
And, of course, if the boys win, it will be the first time in WIAA history the boys and girls basketball teams won, along with the football team.
The last time the Bangor boys were at the state tournament was 1936.
In the semifinal win, Manke was 7-for-8 from the field in scoring 18 points, while Johnson added 17 going 7-for-10 from the field.
N.E.W. Lutheran’s Samuel Meerstein scored 19 points but was just 8 of 23 from the field and 0-for-7 from beyond the arc. Nobody else scored more than four.
The Cardinals were just 13-for-34 from the field in the first half (38.2%) but held N.E.W. Lutheran to 6-of-33 shooting.
The two teams combined to shoot 1-for-28 from beyond the arc.
