The Foundation for Madison’s Public Schools will focus its efforts for the foreseeable future on the achievement gap and STEAM education, according to Executive Director Stephanie Hayden.

"We just felt that it was true to our mission and our vision for all schools to be successful, and so we knew the achievement gap had to be part of our focus moving forward," she said.

STEAM refers to the traditional STEM education -- science, technology, engineering and mathematics -- but  includes the arts.

The division one girls softball tournament begins next week but Thursday afternoon at Olbrich park second ranked Sun Prairie and fifth ranked Lafollette met in a game that had all the excitement and intensity of a playoff game.

This game saw two great pitchers. Sun Prairie's Kristen Hoppman had 15 strike outs and Lafollette Nicole Newman had 14 strikeouts.

In the 5th Sun Prairie's Briana Pedersen singles to score Katelyn Huemmer. It's one nothing until the 7th.

With two outs, Lancer catcher Amy Lanzendorf singles to score Newman and tie the game at one.

The game goes to extras and in the 9th they have to switch fields because the rubber on the pitching mound comes off.

In the bottom of the 11th Lafollette loads the bases and Lanzendorf takes the walk and Lafollette win 2-1.

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In the circle, Nicole Newman is in a class of her own. The La Follette pitcher struck out 20, yes 20, batters Tuesday as the Lancer beat Verona 2-1 in eight innings. Newman also chipped in an RBI for La Follette.

In the 8th, Ariana Sweeney had the game winning hit to score Riley Zempel and propel the Lancers to a 2-1 victory.�

With the win, La Follette improves to 10-3 in the Big Eight Conference, while Verona falls to 13-3.�