Whitnall Downs Pewaukee, Wins Regional Title

A lot has been said about Whitnall’s two point guards, sophomore Daniel Weymier and junior Stephen Pelkofer.

After Saturday night, a few more sentences won't hurt.

The duo combined for 31 points as the Falcons raced out to an early lead over Pewaukee and then held on for a 61-47 victory at Waukesha West to give Whitnall its first regional title in two years.

“It feels great to be regional champs,” Pelkofer said. “It was pretty much a conference tournament between the two best teams from each division. We feel great just to be where we are and we’re excited to go to the Al McGuire Center.”

The Falcons advance to take on Wisconsin Lutheran (22-2), which downed Pius XI, 59-48, Saturday. That game is scheduled for 8 p.m. Thursday, at the Al McGuire Center.

In the regional final, the Pirates drew within seven after a 3-pointer by Pewaukee junior John Czerwinski with just under two minutes remaining but the Falcons hit 12 of 18 free-throw attempts in the fourth quarter to ice the game and preserve the victory.

“We’ve had good starts,” Whitnall coach Kent Kroupa said. “I would’ve liked a better start of the third quarter, but we knew Pewaukee was going to come back, we knew the 3s were going to start flying and fortunately for us they missed enough to help us out.”

The most telling statistic came from the free-throw line, where Whitnall finished 22 of 34 (64.7 percent) while Pewaukee shot just 8 of 15 (53.3 percent).

In fact, the Falcons had only one field goal the entire fourth quarter, a break-away dunk by Pelkofer that brought the standing-room only crowd to its feet.

“As soon as I got that fast-break my eyes just lit up,” Pelkofer said. “I definitely knew I was going to get a dunk so I just wanted to get the crowd involved and it got us some momentum so it was good.”

The junior led the way for Whitnall with 18 points. Weymier added 13 while junior Lucas Mentkowski added 12.