The term "March Madness" was coined several years ago but as everyone in Wisconsin knows March Madness begins in February. We have alot to get to this time around so let's start with girls basketball.

 

- Two important match-ups take place this weekend before tournament play begins. Eau Claire North visits Rice Lake with the Big Rivers conference championship on the line and Osseo-Fairchild plays Neillsville at Altoona in the annual Cloverbelt conference cross-over game. For more on these games see the Top 5 games of the week located on our site.

 

- The WIAA tournament pairings were released late Sunday night and here are a few observations.

In Division 1- EC North gets the # 1 seed and EC Memorial gets the # 2 seed in the Wausau East sectional. It will be interesting to see if the WIAA makes North and Memorial travel to Wausau East for the sectional semi-final should those two teams get out of the Regionals. The WIAA created a new rule this year for D1 having the sectional semi-finals and sectional final being held at one host school. 

 

- In D2 The Unity Regional is absolutely stacked with quality teams! # 1 Durand, # 2 Rice Lake, and # 3 Barron will all hoist conference championship banners once this season is over. Don't forget about # 4 Altoona from the Western Cloverbelt either. The Gregorich sisters and company would love nothing better than to play spoiler.  Look for the winner of this Regional to go on and meet Neillsville in the sectional final in Chippewa Falls.

 

- In D3  Look for # 1 seed Colfax and # 2 Boyceville to potentially meet for a 3rd time in Amery for the Regional final.

The Dunn-St. Croix conference produced 3 powerhouses in Colfax, Boyceville and Mondovi this season and all 3 teams had signature non-conference wins. Boyceville beat Wausau Newman at Newman. Mondovi beat MBC champion Durand and Colfax beat D2 powerhouse and BRC champion Rice Lake. 

Look for Regis to come out of the Hudson Regional and face the winner of a potential Osseo-Fairchild vs Mondovi Regional final in Altoona. In the end I could see Colfax meeting Mondovi again in Eau Claire for the right to go to state.

In the Reedsburg Sectional # 1 Whitehall is coming off a tough rubber match loss to Independence in the Dairyland conference playoffs last weekend but look for the Norse and UWEC recruit Jackie Hauser to make a strong run in the tournament.

 

-In D4 My goodness what a Regional that is coming out of Lakeland. # 1 Rib Lake, # 2 Hurley and # 3 Flambeau all have combined for a total of one loss on the season. That was Flambeau's narrow loss earlier this year to Regis. One area basketball pundit quipped the other day "When was the last time Flambeau had to play on the road in a Regional semi-final?"  I venture to guess that it was before the Ted Alberson era at Flambeau. That could happen though if Flambeau and Hurley win their Regional quarterfinal games. Make no mistake there has been some darn good basketball played this season up in the northwoods of Wisconsin. The winner of the Lakeland Regional will probably face the Dragons of Siren in one half of the Spooner Sectional. In the Cumberland Regional # 1 seed Clayton could have their hands full with Clear Lake in a potential Regional Final. Clear Lake defeated Siren earlier this season. In the Bloomer Regional look for # 1 seed Owen-Withee which handed Neillsville their only loss this season to advance to the Spooner sectional.

In the La Crosse Central sectional look for # 1 seed Independence to make some noise.

 

If I didn't mention your team up above don't worry. If there is one constant during playoff time it is that there are always upsets and upsets have the potential to change the total landscape of how we view things.

 

- Big week for WIAC Women's college basketball!!  March Madness has arrived in the WIAC a full week before the WIAC tournaments begin.  Over on the Women's side we have the Top 3 positions in the conference still up for grabs!  Currently UW-Stout coming off a loss to UW-Stevens Point is atop the WIAC with a 12-3 mark while UWEC and UW-Whitewater are tied for 2nd place at 10-4.  Stout has a bye this Wednesday while UWEC travels to last place UW-Superior and Whitewater travels to UW-Oshkosh. Should UWEC and Whitewater win on Wednesday then we will have a showdown Saturday with everything up for grabs!  Stout hosts UW-La Crosse and UWEC travels to UW-Whitewater and both games are scheduled for 5:00 so none of the teams will know how the other team or teams are doing on the other side of the state. One thing is for certain though in that it promises to be exciting!!

 

- Our list of 1,000 point scorers during this high school basketball season continues to grow. West Wisconsin Sports salutes these fine area high school athletes on this major accomplishment. Here is the current list and we've left anyone out please let us know using the contact us button on our homepage.

 

• Molly Bjelland - Grantsburg
• Caitlin Flanigan - Siren
• Jacob Doro - Gilman
• Brennan Dickinsen - Augusta
• Josh Murray - Pepin
• Marcus Helland - Baldwin-Woodville
• Jackie Hauser - Whitehall
• Afton Glander - Alma

Finally here is a list of some of the area high school athletes who have declared or accepted scholarships to area colleges and universities next fall. WWS contacted some of these players and got some comments which are noted below.  West Wisconsin Sports salutes this area athletes and wishes them the best in their post-high school endeavors.

 

Katie Bethke from Eau Claire Memorial....accepting a scholarship to play soccer for the University of Minnesota. Katie told us recently about her switching from an earlier oral commitment to Northwestern to the U of MN... "I just had more of connection with the coaches and players from Minnesota. The coaches there have coached me in the past so they know how I play and I know how they play. I feel very comfortable and confident with them.  I have played on club teams and ODP with a handful of the girls on the team and they are just amazing. I think the U of M soccer program is going in a great direction and I'm just excited to be apart of it."

 

Andy Sandelier from Greenwood....on attending UW-Stout mentioned to WWS that Stout has baseball and UWEC doesn't and he liked the campus and the laptop thing and a Greenwood grad Jaimie Hinker played for Stout.

 

Jackie Hauser from Whitehall.......leaning very heavily towards UWEC. She's led the Norse to the Large Dairyland title in basketball and went over the 1,000 point plateau earlier this season.

 

Josh Murray from Pepin....accepting a scholarship from the University of North Dakota to play football. Here are his comments to WWS...."what attracted me to their program was the coaches who are really great, the football teams winning history and just the overall atmosphere of the campus.  as for any contact with other players, i do know a couple that attented football camp with me my first year and a couple others that i met during my official visit of the campus. "

 

We'll reveal some more player commitments next week and look at the WIAA boys basketball brackets as they are unveiled.