As Paul Darling departs Waukesha South, a look back at one of the great upsets in state history
JR Radcliffe
Paul Darling announced he was stepping down as head girls basketball coach at Waukesha South after 20 years, electing to spend more time with his kids, ages 13 and 7.
Darling led Waukesha South to the state finals twice, once in 2005 with state Player of the Year Erin Monfre and once in 2002, when Monfre was a freshman and University of Wisconsin recruit Erin Olson was a senior. That team turned in one of the more surprising runs to the state final, with a shocking win in the state semifinal over powerful Janesville Parker, the two-time reigning state champion that had won 55 straight games behind three-time State Player of the Year Mistie Bass.
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The 2002 state tournament
On the 55-45 win over Janesville Parker…
“Everybody was in that Field House (on the UW campus), which I happen to love, and everybody but the Janesville people were cheering for us. It was an enormous crowd. It was an electric atmosphere, and everybody wanted us to win. It was a nice way for that group of seniors; they started at four wins (in their freshman year) and ultimately came around to be state runner-up.”
BOX SCORE:Waukesha South 55, Janesville Parker 45
On trying to stop future Duke University standout and WNBA star Mistie Bass (who finished with 24 points) …
“She’s so good; we were going to let her get whatever she can get. She might have had 27 points, and that was something we thought we could live with. We were in the hotel rooms in Madison and you got a lot of Janesville stations. We heard them saying the parade was going to be held on such and such date when they come back on Saturday. They’re planning a parade already. But it was just a tremendous game and it was kind of a blur. I’m thankful that I was able to buy those DVDs (of game film) and relive those moments. So much fun to be a part of.”
On freshman Erin Monfre, who went on to become one of the state’s best players and a Marquette University standout …
“Against Parker, she was 10 of 11 from the free-throw line. We joke about the one she missed, saying that one was intentional to keep her in the game (because a substitute was waiting at the scorer’s table). Who knows if that’s true or not?”
On the state-final loss to Hudson, 65-46 …
“We had to have been one of the worst records going into that tournament (with six losses), and then we ended up playing Hudson with Annie Nelson, (today) Joe Thomas’s wife, and she played at Wisconsin and was a terrific player. In that game, we had five threes in the first quarter against their infamous 1-3-1 zone defense, and we just couldn’t pull them out of the zone. They stuck with it, and we just eventually didn’t shoot very well in the second half.”
BOX SCORE:Hudson 65, Waukesha South 46
Humble beginnings
On the first year with the program in 1998-99, when the team won four games …
“We basically started four freshmen on that varsity team way back then, thinking we may not be very good, but we’ll win with our kids, so we won four games that first year. Erin Olson’s class (arriving as freshmen that year), they won eight games as sophomores, and junior year, they won 16. Senior year, they went 20-7.”
On team chemistry during the 2001-02 regular season …
“We had struggled during the year and the chemistry wasn’t great. We had an athletic code suspension at one point. The sectional final game Kettle Moraine; they had beaten us handily the first two times in the season, but then we upset them to go to state. (On that KM team), Adrienne Norris was a senior, Aubri Rote (a junior). Then, the first game at state is Mukwonago, who beat us both times in the regular season (but South won the third battle, 46-27). … The chemistry was starting to get better, and we were playing pretty well together. We were kind of overachieving.”
Heartbreak in 2004, joy in 2005
On being upset in the sectional semifinal round in 2004 …
“We were ranked No. 1 and won every game and we didn’t have seeding back then in the tournament. We played Kettle Moraine, and they got us back (for the upset in 2002). It was devastating, the most difficult loss I’ve had. Monfre got in foul trouble off the bat, and it was a packed house at KM. The bleachers on both ends were slammed, with people underneath the basket. They had to rope it off for us to get through to the court. It was amazing school spirit and to see the community come out, it was so much fun up until we lost. They say you can’t really enjoy true joy until you experience true pain, and that was painful. We were ranked No. 1 all year and felt pretty good about our situation and didn’t even get to go to state.”
BRACKET:2004 WIAA Division 1 girls basketball postseason
On the injuries in Ohio in 2005 …
"Monfre’s senior year, we got invited to a national tournament out in Ohio over Christmas, the Kroger Classic in Pickerington, Ohio, with teams from all over the country that were really good. We suffered an injury there; Eryn Finke was our post player and broke her hand, and our sixth man, Sierra Barthen, tore her ACL that tournament too, and we went 1-2."
On a tough playoff battle after finishing undefeated in Wisconsin …
"(We played) Waukesha West, who we handled very easily the first two times we played them, (in the regional final). I remember this vividly; one of our players was a girl named Anna Halat, really probably our best defensive player, a three-year starter, and we’re losing to Waukesha West in the fourth quarter. It was a high stress time, and somebody’s shooting free throws. From the court, she’s like, ‘What the hell is going on?’ I remember saying back, ‘I don’t know; you better figure it out.’ (South) battled back and ended up beating West by (nine)."
On the rest of the postseason run…
"We played Nicolet in the sectional final and we started out on a 17-0 run (South won the game, 68-49, to advance to state).
We made it to state and faced our old friend Janesville Parker and did a terrific job taking care of business (South won, 62-44). Milwaukee Riverside (in the state semifinal) had a couple kids that went to UWM. I know we beat them by a sizable margin at the end (64-51), but it was a tighter game through the first half. Abby Schneider (7 of 11 shooting off the bench) did a terrific job against them.
Then we play De Pere. They were No. 2 all year, and we were No. 1. It was a great game that just didn’t go our way." (South lost the title game, 51-43.)
Darling’s teams won 31 straight Classic 8 Conference games at one point, and he still has the game ball from the the state semifinal upset over Parker in 2002.
“It’s a pretty special trophy,” he said.
