The Onalaska/La Crosse boys hockey program is enjoying that breakout it has been waiting for since the first of three straight losing records from the beginning of the 2021-22 season through 2023-24.
Veteran coach Oak Moser guided the Hilltoppers back to .500 with a 12-12 performance last season before turning things over to assistant coach Drew Kjos.
Kjos expected improvement from his players and a lot from himself as he embraced his first chance to lead a program that was a dominant one when Kjos attended Logan High School and played for a Central/Logan co-op.
The Hilltoppers won their first four games with Kjos at the helm and then followed up their first loss with eight more wins in a row.
A 22-2 record is not what he envisioned for his first season, but he expected success with the number of returning players the team had and his first-hand understanding of how they were ready to take another step.
After winning the inaugural Western Wisconsin Hockey Conference championship without losing a game, the fifth-seeded Hilltoppers embark on much different challenge — the WIAA Division 1 postseason — on Tuesday when they host a12th-seeded co-op team from DeForest (6-18) at the OmniCenter.
“We have always found a way (to succeed) even when we aren’t playing our best,” Kjos said. “We always find a way at the end of a game to finish it if it’s a close one.
“… We always find a way to get the job done.”
The 12th-seeded Navigators can’t say the same, but fifth-seeded Onalaska/La Crosse know it has to be prepared when the puck drops at 7 p.m. Wins over teams outside the Coulee Region always require extra focus and extra effort, and the Hilltoppers showed they can come up with plenty of that by winning 11 of 13 games against teams from outside the area this season.
Their current 10-game winning streak includes a 4-0 win over Beaver Dam, a 7-2 victory over West Bend, a 6-0 beating of Baraboo/Portage and a 3-2 overtime triumph over Oregon on Friday. Three of those games were on home ice, and the Panthers finished the season with 13 victories.
Onalaska/La Crosse also beat Sauk Prairie (16-7-1), Reedsburg (14-10) and D.C. Everest (14-9), Tomah/Sparta (13-11) twice and the Avalanche (13-11) twice, so it has proven the ability to beat winning teams.
Kjos, who teaches physical education at State Road Elementary and one PE class at Central, has instituted morning lifting sessions twice per week. They start at 6:15 and are them mandatory for all varsity players.
He has former teammate Ben Fowler — the strength and conditioning coach for the AHL’s Colorado Eagles — helping out with the creation of workouts. Fowler played on the Onalaska/La Crosse team that qualified for the state tournament at the end of the 2018-19 season.
Kjos has deep roots in the Coulee Region — specifically with every school in this co-op — and jumped at the chance to return home after spending one season teaching and coaching in Albert Lea, Minn.
His mom graduated from Onalaska and his dad and brothers from Logan. His grandfather on his mom’s side is an Onalaska grad and that grandmother a Logan grad. Both grandparents on his dad’s side graduated from Central.
He understands what it meant for Onalaska to qualify for state three times from 2009 through 2016 and for this co-op to get there in 2019.
This team is using a balanced offensive attack and has scored at least eight goals in a game five times.
Central junior Liam Branson leads the team in goals (24) and total points (44). Onalaska junior Grayson Andel has 15 goals and is tied with Onalaska senior Jackson Egan for the team lead in in assists (21).
Onalaska senior Carter Johnson has 19 goals and Central senior Logan Sauter 17 assists. The Hilltoppers have six players with at least 25 points and nine with at least five goals.
The defense has been even better with six goals allowed over the final eight regular-season games.
Central junior Parker Tripp has been nothing short of magnificent outside of a 7-1 loss to Monona Grove early in the season. He allowed seven goals that day but has allowed a total of just 37 all season. Tripp has nine shutouts and has allowed more than two goals in a game just five times.
All of that has added up to a high enough postseason seed to host a regional opener for the first time since 2020-21.
“It will be awesome for me and the kids,” Kjos said. “They’ve never had a home (playoff) game. They had one at the Omni (against the host Avalanche two years ago), but it wasn’t a home game.
“So I think it will be a very cool experience for all of us to have all the friends and family of players and coaches be able to show up and watch them participate in a playoff game.”
