Racine Prairie makes long-awaited trip to state

The road block was toppled.

Year after year, Racine Prairie’s path to the boys state tennis tournament was blocked by University School in sectionals.

So one would think the Hawks went wild after winning the Brown Deer Sectional to finally reach their first WIAA tournament, including the nowfashionable use of water bottles to douse the coach or the hero of the day. Nope. “I told them to think about every year the reaction the winning team had and how you felt,” Prairie coach Nich Schafer said. “They agreed to react in a respectful manner. We went and got the (sectional) trophy, went down on the court for pictures, gave them their medals, and went home.”

Just went home, after ending University School’s run of 11 straight trips to state?

“We knew we had to keep our focus, keep working, because the eventual goal is to win the state championship,” Prairie’s Rohan Banerjee said. “All the guys knew that. It was great and we were all really happy, but we weren’t going to go crazy or anything and remained focused on what’s to come.”

That would be a Division 2 semifinal against Kohler at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Nielsen Tennis Stadium in Madison.

Only Nicolet and Marquette have more state championships than University School’s 10, and the Wildcats advanced to the title match 10 consecutive times beginning in 2006 – the start of six straight titles.

Prairie finished six points behind them in the sectional last year and the gap was just three points in 2014.

The Hawks’ top-three singles players, Juan Pe- rez, Andrew Liu and Banerjee, have been on varsity since they were freshmen and had to endure it all – until now.

“It was pretty frustrating," Liu said. "We're all finally relieved we were able to make it to team state. I feel like our tennis team has always been like, ‘there goes USM again to team state.’ But now it's us, finally.”

Schafer is in his first season as head coach but has been an assistant to long-timer Harold Swanson for the previous 16 years. Just once in the last 17 years had University School not been in Prairie’s sectional.

“Luckily they don’t know any better,” Schafer said. “We have had a good tennis program for over 40 years. These kids have been a little underrecognized because they’ve been in the shadow of a team like USM.”

Knowing the Wildcats graduated six of their 10 players last season, the Hawks figured this could be their year.

“Every time after sectionals it was a sad feeling because we were so close once again but couldn’t quite make it,” Banerjee said. “But at the end of last year, we kind of looked at USM’s team and saw pretty much the whole team was gone. And so we knew we had a really good shot this year.”

So did Banerjee, who remained at No. 3 singles instead of listening to his coach after it was suggested he switch to doubles to try to improve his chance of reaching the individual state tournament (held the weekend before team state) for the first time.

“His reaction was,” said Schafer, "‘I think we’re a better team with me at No. 3. I’d rather reach our team goal of going to team state.’”

However, if Prairie is able to defeat Kohler again (the Hawks won, 6-1, earlier this year), reigning state champion Madison Edgewood will likely be waiting in the title match Saturday afternoon.

This is the Crusaders 14th state tournament in a row.

Win that, and there will definitely be a celebration.

“If they can pull out two wins on Saturday, we’ll let them react,” Schafer said.