WAUNAKEE - There were moments through the first three quarters March 13 when Tyler Fuchs showed flashes of being a good listener, but he didn't completely answer Sam Koenig's challenge until his Sauk Prairie prep boys basketball team needed him the most.

"This morning, I was sending him text messages to be more aggressive, because he hasn't been scoring much in the postseason," Koenig said of an exchange with his friend and a fellow senior in the hours before the Eagles faced Madison Edgewood in a WIAA Division 2 sectional final later that night. "I said, ‘It's just a normal game, it's just like a scrimmage. Take it to them and finish.'"

And?

"And that's exactly what he did," Koenig added after Fuchs' drive and lay-in opened the fourth quarter and stretched Sauk Prairie's lead to five before he capped his team-best 12-point effort with eight more points in the quarter - including a 6-of-6 free-throw effort over the final two minutes, 35 seconds - to fuel the Eagles to a 54-41 win and their first state berth since 1997.

"You've just got to step up and hit the shots and play big when the team needs you to," said Fuchs, the team's point guard - and a capable scorer as perhaps its best defender - after scoring just 11 points through the first four postseason games.

"(And) the free throws - those are routine. We shoot 50 free throws, at least, every day. And you just get into a routine, and as long as the legs aren't tired, it's not that hard to make them."

In fact, nobody for Sauk Prairie (21-6) - which will face Waukesha Catholic Memorial (25-2) at 1:35 p.m. March 19 in a semifinal game at the Kohl Center before Northwestern (23-4) and Kiel (19-6) play in the other semifinal - struggled from the line during the final 2:35.

Matt Rudig made four free throws and Drew Carden chipped in two as the Eagles went 12-of-12 to finish 18-of-21 for the game.

"There wasn't anybody that was scared to shoot those free throws," Sauk Prairie coach Tim Marshall said of the biggest reason his team was able to earn its 14th straight win. "To have that kind of pressure - they wanted to go to state so bad - and to just step up there and calmly make those free throws, I was really happy for them."

Sauk Prairie needed the free throws to ice a game that only a brief time earlier hung in the balance.

After Fuchs' lay-in to open the fourth made it 38-33, neither team scored until Derek Sullivan was able to get some space along the left baseline and use his 6-foot-5 frame to stride and angle for a tough lay-in that made it 40-33 with 5:57 to play.

Edgewood's (17-10) Christiaan Wabers made 1-of-2 free throws to get the Crusaders within 40-34 with 4:25 left, but Fuchs drove the lane and floated a short jumper to make it 42-34 with 3:31 left. And the Eagles' perfect finish from the free throw line made sure they never led by less than eight the rest of the way.

"At the end of the third quarter, we said, ‘We've got eight minutes left for our season if we don't play (well).' Us seniors, we didn't want eight minutes left in our career - we wanted to play another week," Fuchs said of the Eagles ability to finish what was a back-and-forth game through the first three quarters. "We wanted it worse than they did, we played together, we played defense like we knew we could and we just came out and took care of business. It was awesome."

The Eagles led 24-23 at halftime - the eighth lead change of the half - after Carden made a jumper along the left baseline with 4 seconds left in the half. That finished a balanced scoring half, which saw Carden and Rudig both score six points to go along with five from Sullivan and contributions from three others.

"Anyone can score," said Fuchs, who got his two points in the half when he drove the lane and drew a blocking foul while making the basket before missing the free throw with 2:07 left in the second quarter.

Added Edgewood coach Chris Zwettler, whose team's balanced scoring threat suffered a blow when sophomore leading scorer Austin Arians had to take a seat on the bench with his fourth foul early in the fourth quarter:

"The last couple of games, we could concentrate on two or three guys and then help off the others. And tonight, we knew we had to play really good team defense, and I think for the most part we did. ... But it was tough. And they play really well together."

Koenig and Travis Breunig both scored five points in the third quarter - which saw just one tie - to keep the Eagles from every trailing and setting the stage for their convincing finish.

"My challenge to the guys was, if we could pressure them from beginning to end, that in the fourth quarter, when it counted, they'd start getting a little tired." Marshall said of the Eagles ability to slowly pull away after halftime. "Our defense has been good throughout this run ... and I just felt - I told them - ‘If you hold them to 23 this half, we're going to have a good chance of winning this game at the end.'"

So Sauk Prairie did, and a year after challenging eventual Division 1 state champion Madison Memorial in a nine-point, regional final loss, the Eagles are state-bound themselves.

"We knew after we lost to them that we could play with anyone. And then we put the time in all summer, and now the time, the work, is paying off," Breunig said. "It's a dream come true."

Added Carden of the ensuing celebration, which lasted more than an hour and included the usual net-cutting routine:

"Best feeling of my life. ... I wanted it to come true so bad, but I didn't think it would come like this. It's the best group of guys that it could happen with."

Sauk Prairie 12 12 12 18 - 54

Madison Edgewood 15 8 10 8 - 41

SAUK PRAIRIE: Derek Sullivan 9, Sam Koenig 8, Drew Carden 8, Travis Breunig 7, Tyler Fuchs 12, Matt Rudig 10. Totals (field goals free throws made-attempted points) 17 18-21 54.

MADISON EDGEWOOD: Arians 7, Wabers 6, Balczewski 6, Pavlik 5, Brink 17. Totals: 17 2-4 41.

3-point goals: Sauk Prairie 2 (Koenig 2). Madison Edgewood 5 (Brink 3, Arians 1, Pavlik 1). Total fouls: Sauk Prairie 9. Madison Edgewood 13.

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