West Wisconsin Sports.Com
Friday, February 15th, 2008
The WIAA state hockey tournament is underway
and the boys basketball state tournament will commence in just a few short
days so let's take a look at how things are shaping up in the area.
Boys hockey: Eau
Claire Memorial is 21-0 and just keeps rolling. They are two games
away from Madison and there is no reason to believe they won't get
there. Memorial has outscored their opponents 141-16 this season. Next
up is Rice Lake on Tuesday night at Hobbs Ice Arena and the
Old Abes outscored Rice Lake 11-1 in the two regular season match-ups.
Boys basketball:
The WIAA brackets are out so let's take a look at the 4 divisions.
Division 1 Marshfield Sectional:
The favorites: Eau Claire North, Chippewa Falls, Wausau West and Wausau
East. The contenders: Eau Claire Memorial, Superior, River Falls.
An interesting Tuesday night Regional
semi-final game with #7 EC Memorial at #2 Chippewa Falls. The Old Abes beat
Chippewa Falls twice during the regular season. One may say that it's
difficult to beat a team three times in one season but the counter-argument
to that is that some teams just match up well with other teams. Another
interesting game will be #6 Menomonie at # 3 Superior. Menomonie knocked off
Eau Claire North a week ago while Superior has lost to North, Chippewa Falls
and Rice Lake from the BRC.
I look for North, Memorial, Wausau
West and Wausau East to make it to sectional weekend.
Division 2 UW-Stout Sectional :
The favorites : New Richmond, Spooner, Rice Lake, Medford and
Adams-Friendship. The contenders : Osceola, Baldwin-Woodville, Northwestern,
Barron, Neillsville, Black River Falls and G-E-T. Notes: Osceola
has won seven out of their last nine games as of this writing but
they haven't matched up well with New Richmond in two previous
meetings. Baldwin-Woodville has been playing better the 2nd half of the
season, played well against a good Hudson team the other night and with some
hot shooting they could make some noise. A New Richmond vs Spooner Regional
Final would be interesting in that those two teams played to a one point
game earlier this season. Altoona plays at Barron on Tuesday night and that
was a two point game back in January. Look for New Richmond,
Rice Lake, Medford and Black River Falls to advance to sectional
weekend from Division 2. Black River Falls beat Eau Claire Regis a week ago.
Division 3 Eau Claire North Sectional:
The favorites: Eau Claire Regis, Webster, Hurley, Colby. The Contenders:
Fall Creek, Stanley-Boyd, Spring Valley, Washburn and Grantsburg. The
Chippewa Falls sectional semi-final part of this bracket is absolutely
stacked with good teams in Regis, Colby, Fall Creek and Stanley-Boyd. Colby
and Fall Creek will be at Altoona's gym on Saturday night the 16th for the
Cloverbelt Conference crossover games and could be at the Altoona gym
again on Saturday the 23rd for a Regional Final. In the Rice Lake sectional
semi-final bracket it would be a surprise if Webster didn't win their way to
the sectional final again. Look for Webster, Hurley, Regis and Fall
Creek to advance to sectional weekend.
Division 3 Onalaska Regional
look for Arcadia who gave Eleva-Strum all they could handle a few weeks ago
and Aquinas to meet in the Regional Final with Arcadia coming out on top.
Division 4 Spooner Sectional:
The favorites include Solon Springs, Prentice, Luck and Thorp. The
contenders are Northwood, Bruce, Clear Lake, Lake Holcombe, A lot of
people have Luck penciled in to the Sectional finals and for good reason but
they might have their hands full in a Regional semi-final with Bruce. Bruce
just beat #2 seed Lake Holcombe a week ago and have been playing well of
late. #1 seed Thorp is coming out of a very strong Eastern Cloverbelt
Conference this year so they are battle-tested and ready to go. Look
for Northwood, Prentice, Thorp and Luck to make it sectional
weekend.
Next week we will look at the girls brackets.
Congratulations
to Eau Claire North's Hannah Quilling, Cornell's
Courtney Jensen and Birchwood's Zach Burch who all
recently surpassed the 1,000 point mark in their storied basketball careers.
Congratulations also go out to
Durand's Cody Holden who
scored 48 points in Durand's win over Amery on Monday night. The 48 points
was a Durand school record.
Here are a list of additional athletes who
have signed letters of intent to play football next fall at various NCAA
schools. We started this list last week so check out our article archive for
more athletes.
Flambeau's Greg Kopacz-Winona
State
Somerset's Evan Kowalski-Northern
Michigan
Hudson's Paul Van Huevel-Minnesota
State-Mankato
Elmwood's Michael Brunner-Minnesota
State-Mankato
Altoona's Tad Hanson-Bemidji
State
Bruce's Jake Zimmerman-Bemidji
State
In addition Mondovi's Casey Groehler
has committed to cross-country and track & field at Concordia University
in Mequon, WI.
The UWEC Women's basketball team's WIAC title
hopes took a blow on Wednesday night after falling to UW-Stevens Point. UWEC
is now one game behind UW-Whitewater in the conference standings. UWEC is
idle on Saturday while UW-Whitewater plays at UW-Stevens Point.
Here is the current list of 2008 boys
basketball conference champions from the nine out of the 11 conferences
we cover here at WWS.
Big Rivers-Eau Claire North
Western Cloverbelt-Eau Claire Regis
Eastern Cloverbelt-Colby
Small Dairyland-Eleva-Strum
Large Dairyland-Blair-Taylor* and Whitehall
Dunn-St. Croix-Spring Valley
Heart O' North-Spooner
Middle Border-New Richmond
Central Lakeland-Clear Lake
*Blair-Taylor gets the #1 seed in the
Dairyland Conference crossover game this weekend.
The West Lakeland and East Lakeland
Conferences still have some issues to be decided so we'll report on those
next week.
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