D'Amato: In WIAA basketball tournament, not every ending is a happy one

MADISON – You watch the winner, always, and so you fixated on Patrick Cartier running down the court, eyes wide open, arms extended, the very picture of jubilation.

Cartier had just hit the game-winning shot at the buzzer in overtime, an impossibly difficult 10-foot side-armed turnaround jumper over two defenders in the paint, to give Brookfield East a 52-50 victory over Sun Prairie in a WIAA Division 1 semifinal game Friday night.

The senior forward was mobbed by his teammates on the court and then sprinted to the south basket at the Kohl Center, where East’s delirious fans showered him with the kind of adulation that every athlete should feel just once in his or her life.

You watched all that, smiling, and so you missed Sun Prairie senior Marty Strey lying on his back on the court, missed him walk to the locker room in the supportive arms of assistant coaches, the very picture of dejection. Strey and teammate Jalen Johnson had done everything the right way on the final inbounds play. They double-teamed Cartier, had their hands up, didn’t foul.

The shot went in. Sun Prairie went home.

The Cardinals’ 21-game winning streak was over, their dream of reaching the state championship game for the first time in school history shattered.

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For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Nowhere is that truer than at the WIAA state basketball tournament, where the champions get the gold ball, the forever glory, the “remember when …” 10 and 20 and 50 years later and the teams that fall short get their hearts broken.

After the game, Sun Prairie coach Jeff Boos looked like he’d just gone 12 rounds with Mike Tyson, but the bruising was internal. Ashen-faced, his voice barely rising above a whisper, Boos agonized over in-game decisions he made or didn’t make, because that’s what coaches do.

“You reflect on, hey, what should I have done differently?” Boos said. “You go back and you think to yourself, ‘What could I have done differently? What should I have done differently? Did we do what we were supposed to do to win it?’ That will be the thing that will bother me for a long time.

“That goes back on your shoulders as a coach. You go back and reflect on it. Where did we make the mistake? Did we not call a timeout when we should have? You feel for your ballplayers because that’s your responsibility as a coach.”

Someday, this will be a warm memory for Boos and his players. But someday is a long way away.

“I don’t know how you get over it, to be honest with you,” he said.

It’s no easier when you’re the overwhelming underdog and you’ve got a chance to upset the state’s top-ranked team.

Sussex Hamilton, which lost five consecutive games earlier in the season, trailed top-ranked and once-beaten Oshkosh North, 31-12, late in the first half of their Division 1 semifinal.

The game was over. Except it wasn’t. Hamilton clawed its way back to within a point and had the ball and a chance to win with 2.2 seconds left. After a final timeout, junior guard Carson Smith got free well behind the three-point line, caught the inbounds pass, set himself quickly and launched a 28-footer over two closing defenders that looked good every inch of the way.

The arc was perfect. The distance was perfect.

The result was not. The ball caught a lot of rim and rattled out to the right.

Just like that, it was over for Hamilton. The game. The season. The Chargers lost, 57-56, and their fans, who had worked themselves into a frenzy during the furious second-half comeback, now filed silently out of the Kohl Center. Cheerleaders were crying. In the locker room, the Chargers were, too.

“They were dejected. They were heartbroken,” coach Andy Cerroni said. “Yes, there were tears. The coaches had tears.”

Cerroni shook his head.

“We were there,” he said. “We were there. I’m not going to sleep well tonight. I’m going to wake up tomorrow morning and just … I don’t know. I can’t put it into words.”

Smith came out of the locker room to talk to a reporter. He was clear-eyed, sad but not disconsolate. He took the game on his shoulders, got a good look, launched a shot he makes 40% of the time. This time, it didn’t go in.

That’s basketball. That’s life.

“I thought it was going in for sure,” he said. “Being a shooter, you think every shot is going in. But it rimmed out. It was very emotional in the locker room. It was tough. Very quiet.”

This is the chance you take when you make it to state. In your quest for a championship, you must be willing to accept the alternate outcome. That your dream will not come true, that your journey will end in a silent walk off the court while the other team celebrates.

Deerfield senior Nate Siewert was able to put the heartbreak in perspective after the Demons lost to McDonell Catholic Central, 56-46, in a Division 5 semifinal.

“Only five teams in all of Wisconsin get to end their season with a win,” Siewert said. “Getting this far, it’s amazing. That’s my word of the day. Amazing. I couldn’t be more proud of my fellow teammates, my coaches and my community for all the support that we’ve received. It’s been an experience I’ll remember my whole life.

“Yeah, I cried a little bit. It was not a sad-that-it’s-over, but a smile-that-it-happened moment. It was terrific.”

In every way but won.