Posted: March 6, 2010 |(0) Comments

It's the job Germantown boys basketball coach Steve Showalter set for himself, the monster he created, this joyful scene that played out on the floor of the Warhawks gym Saturday night, following his team's workmanlike 56-45 WIAA regional championship victory over border rival Sussex Hamilton.

People shaking hands, slapping five, making plans for the WIAA sectional game on Friday night at the Al McGuire Center in Milwaukee against another border rival, Menomonee Falls. It's the fourth straight regional title and the fourth straight trip to the Al for the Warhawks.

You had center Jake Keefe (six points) autographing a little boy's shirt while the tyke's mother just shook her head in amazement. There was Showalter joyfully clasping hands with former stars like Ben Averkamp and Mike Laubenheimer.

But all the backslapping and happiness that went into this particular job had hard work behind it, especially with a sophomore-laden group that returned no starters and had virtually no experience going into the season.

"I'm so proud of my boys," Showalter said. "Willing to come to work every day to accomplish something together. We've rolled this regional in years past, but to get a regional championship with this group is just so special."

"I'll say it a million times, to start 4-4 and now be 18-6. There's no way I could have predicted this."

The Warhawks will play the Greater Metro Conference champion Falls squad (20-3) in an 8 p.m. sectional semifinal on Friday night at the Al. The Indians overpowered the Warhawks, 88-67, in December and survived a 76-75 scare from Mukwonago in a regional final of their own on Saturday.

Falls and Germantown met in the sectional final last season, with the Warhawks outlasting the game Indians to advance to their second straight state tournament. Falls is riding a 14-game winning streak while Germantown has won 14 of its last 16.

The Warhawks are anxious for the rematch.

"When we found out that Falls had won this afternoon, we wanted to win tonight and get back there (to the sectional) and get another chance at them," said point guard Josh Mongan, who scored all seven of his points in the fourth quarter on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the story is quite different for the Chargers (13-11). It was the end of an era for them, as they will graduate 12 seniors and found themselves again unable to solve the problem that the Warhawks pose for them. Germantown beat them in the first game of the season after hammering them in the regional final in 2009, also in a game played in the Warhawk gym.

"I was nothing but pleased with the way we responded tonight," said Charger coach Andy Cerroni. "They just made a few more plays. We had some good looks that could have changed the game if they had dropped, but they didn't. ...It was a great high school game and as it always is in this situation, someone has to lose."

As Cerroni said, it was indeed just a few plays here or there.

Germantown jumped out to a 4-0 lead and never trailed. The closest the game ever was was 4-3. Hamilton got it to 10-8 midway through the period, but then Keefe hit a clutch three and Zak Showalter ended a Warhawks' drought of over four minutes with a herky-jerky trey from the right wing at the buzzer to make it 16-8.

Germantown's leading scorer, Zak Showalter (11 points) would sit all but 27 seconds of the second quarter with his second foul, but despite that, Germantown built the lead up to 23-12 on a 3-pointer from reserve Jordan Infield.

But the Chargers then mounted a comeback, as Eric Reimer's trifecta with 23 seconds left in the half closed the gap to 26-22.

"We got it down a couple of times to two scores, but we couldn't quite finish it," Cerroni said.

That much was true. Germantown got baskets from Joe Medley and Malcolm Bowers (game high 17 points) to quickly boost the advantage up to eight again at the start of the third quarter. Bowers, who is the Warhawks' defensive stopper, was all over the floor this night, as Germantown made it difficult for Hamilton to get into any kind of offensive flow.

"That's what we try to do every day," said Bowers. "Get them out of what they want to do and get them to play the way we want. We kept working at it all game long and it really came together."

"Malcolm picked a great night to have the greatest game of his life," Coach Showalter said.

Hamilton got the gap under five just once the rest of the way, as Germantown, which didn't shoot a free throw in the first half and missed its only two attempts in the third quarter, would hit nine of 10 charity tosses in the final stanza.

Medley added eight and Infield had seven for the Warhawks, while Brian Krohn had 16 to lead Hamilton and Reimer (12) and Brett Meinecke (11) also reached double figures.

"It was a test of wills," said Cerroni. "We had things going our way at moments, but they had a lot of different guys hit big shots for them. We had a good gameplan and we followed it closely. It just didn't work out."

Mongan said it was a matter of keeping a level head, a tactic these young but maturing Warhawks have been doing a lot of these last two months.

"We had to stay positive," he said. "We knew they'd go on runs and that we'd have ours. It was just a matter of getting momentum back on our side."

And finishing the job.