EDITOR'S NOTE: The Swnews4u.com Athlete of the Week is a web-only feature that will publish each Thursday or Friday throughout the calendar year.

By Jason Nihles, The Platteville Journal, Fennimore Times, Boscobel Dial

Maddie Driscoll, Fr., Lancaster girls cross country
WISCONSIN RAPIDS —  Lancaster freshman Maddie Driscoll finished ninth of 152 runners with a time of 19:01.0 at last Saturday's WIAA Cross Country State Championships last Saturday to lead the Flying Arrows to a fourth place team finish in Division 2.

While impressive, Driscoll's state cross country debut should have been a fifth-place finish in Division 3, while helping the Flying Arrows to a back-to-back Division 3 state championship.

Instead, Driscoll and the Lancaster girls are left to savor their Division 2 success, but always think of what may have been. Driscoll and the rest of the Flying Arrows were running in Division 2, not because of a spike in enrollment (the method of how divisions are traditionally assigned in WIAA sports), but rather due to a the new Competitive Balance Initiative, which proclaims that if a program accumulates six or more performance points in a span of three consecutive seasons, they will be “promoted” to the next highest division.

Lancaster, who in 2021 and 2022 earned one performance point each of those years for being a state qualifier, also earned four performance points for their state title in 2023, giving them six performance points in the last three seasons.

That earned the Lady Flying Arrows a “promotion” to Division 2, where they were forced to compete against schools and teams with much larger enrollments than Lancaster.

At last Saturday’s Division 2 state meet, the Lancaster ladies ran an incredible race, finishing fourth of 16 teams with 138 points, finishing 78 points behind the D2 state champs from the University School of Milwaukee and 58 points behind the state runners-up from Bloomer. But, if you take the top five individual times from Lancaster and figure them in along with the seven other schools bumped up to Division 2, the Flying Arrows would have won their second consecutive D3 state title by nearly 20 points, and would have added the program’s fourth state trophy to the cabinet, had the Competitive Balance Initiative not been in affect. In fact, with Lancaster’s fourth-place finish at last Saturday’s state meet, they received two more performance points, which assures them of being in Division 2 for the next two seasons.

As it is, Driscoll capped an amazing individual freshman season last Saturday with a top-10 finish at state, after a second-place finish at the D2 Deerfield/Cambridge Sectional, and a runner-up finish at the SWC Championships, Oct. 17 at the Lancaster Country Club to led the Flying Arrows to this year's conference title.

"(These girls) are state champs as far as I’m concerned, because they truly are,” said Lancaster head coach Taylor Reynolds. “I told my wife the other day that when I die put it on my tombstone, that we were state champs in 2024. I couldn’t be more proud of their effort and their performance. No one complained or said a word about this whole thing the entire year, we just kept our nose to the grindstone and just worked hard. They deserve better than this.”

HONORABLE MENTION (in alphabetical order):
Abe Amundson, Sr., QB, Prairie du Chien football
Amundson was a near-perfect 9 of 11 passing for 135 yards and four first-half touchdowns in a dominating 56–0 victory over No. 4 seed Brookfield Academy last week. The SWC champion Blackhawks (10–1) will host No. 3 seed Milwaukee Academy of Science Friday night. MAS (11–1) is coming off a 36–35 upset of SWAL runner-up Darlington (9–3).

Adele Berget, Jr., Darlington girls cross country
Berget cruised to a team-best 11th place finish in the WIAA Division 3 girls cross country state championship race last Saturday with a time of 19:42.9 to lead the Redbird to a sixth-place team finish out of 16 teams.

Nick Connolly, Sr., Iowa–Grant boys cross country
Three-time state qualifier Bret Connolly paced the Iowa–Grant boys Saturday at Wisconsin Rapids, finishing 39th at 17:19.3 to lead the Panthers to a 12th place team finish in Division 3. The IG boys placed 12th out of 16 teams in Division 3 at the Ridges Golf Course and have now qualified for state as a team eight times (1963, 1967, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2019, 2022, 2024). Connolly placed 35th at state both as a sophomore (17:31.1) and junior (17:19.4).

Joe Haas, Sr., RB, Potosi/Cassville football
Senior halfback Joe Haas rushed for a game-high 165 yards and 3 touchdowns to lead No. 3 seed Potosi/Cassville to a 55–0 blowout victory at No. 2 Cochrane–Fountain City in a WIAA Division 7 second round playoff game last Friday night. The undefeated Chieftains (11–0) will host Six Rivers rival and No. 5 seed River Ridge (8–2) Friday night in a Level 3 playoff game at PHS.

Nora Jillson, Sr., Boscobel girls cross country
Boscobel senior standout Nora Jillson closed out her storied prep career by placing 16th out of 152 runners in the girls Division 2 race with a time of 19:26.9. Jillson, a four-time state qualifier and 2022 Division 3 state runner-up as a sophomore, had to run in Division 2 this year after the Boscobel girls team was bumped up a division by the WIAA’s new and controversial competitive balance performance factor rule. Jillson placed sixth in Division 3 at state as a freshman (19:55.0) to help the BHS girls win the D3 state title in 2021. She then placed second individually two years ago as a sophomore (19:08.4), before finishing 12th at last year’s state meet (19:41.2).Jillson also won this year’s D2 sectional title at Black River Falls, won individual SWAL conference titles this fall and in 2022 as a sophomore, and finished second at the SWAL championships both as a freshman and junior.

Wes Kraisinger, Sr., WR/DB, Highland football
Kraisinger caught four passes for 117 yards and two touchdowns, and recorded 15 tackles in No. 1 seed and Ridge & Valley-8 Conference champion Highland's 35–0 victory over No. 2 North Crawford (8–2) in last Friday's WIAA 8-Player Level 2 playoff game. The #2-ranked Cardinals (10–0) will face fellow unbeaten and #1-ranked Owen–Withee (10–0) Friday night at 7 p.m. in a 8-Player state semifinal contest. The Blackhawks are coming off 46–19 victory over Chippewa Falls McDonell Central.

Laci Lindsey, Sr., Mineral Point volleyball
Lindsey recorded 10 kills with a team-high .368 hitting percentage, a team-best five blocks and three aces to lead the SWAL runner-up Pointers (28–7) to a 25–19, 25–21, 25–12 sweep of Fall River in last Saturday's night's WIAA Division 4 Mineral Point Sectional final. Two days earlier, Lindsey posted 21 kills on .383 hitting, with six digs, two blocks and two aces in a gritty five-set 28–26, 23–25, 13–25, 28–26, 15–9 sectional semifinal victory over Hillsboro.

Ellie Robinson, Sr., and Annie Robinson, Sr., Dodgeville girls cross country
Driscoll and the Lancaster girls, and Boscobel's Nora Jillson weren't the only victims of the WIAA's Competitive Balance Initiative. Dodgeville sisters Ellie and Annie Robinson were bumped up to Division 1 after a three years of stellar achievement in Division 2. Ellie finished fifth overall in D1 with a time of 18:36.1 (which was the 13th fastest time across all divisions), while Annie finished 22nd in D1 with a time of 19:12.6.