SHOTS from the Hip

With four games to play Head Coach Joan Korfhage and the Prescott girls basketball team have a one game lead over Ellsworth, Altoona and Baldwin-Woodville. Somerset’s six-point win over Altoona and Ellsworth’s victory over Baldwin-Woodville last week gave the Cardinals sole possession of first place going into the final two weeks of the season. WIAA Tournament seeds will be announced this weekend. The Prescott boys basketball team also entered the week atop the conference standings with a 10-1 record. The outcome of the Feb. 18 game at St. Croix Central will certainly have an impact on tournament seeding.

The Michigan Tech women’s basketball team fell to Purdue-Northwest last Thursday by a score of 93-89. Prescott alumnus Isabella Lenz scored a career high 17 points in the overtime loss. The Huskies’ road woes continued the following Saturday as they fell to UW-Parkside by a score of 81-67. Lenz scored 13 points in the loss that dropped Michigan Tech to 7-5 in conference play and 12-8 overall. Lenz, Prescott’s all-time leading scorer in basketball, is shooting just under 48% from the floor and 36% from three-point range on the season for the Huskies.

The Prescott CAB Company Banquet will be held on Friday, April 1 at the Old Ptacek’s Banquet Center.

The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association will again be sponsoring a 3-point challenge as part of the girls basketball state tournament. Contestants selected to participate in the challenge will be chosen based on threepoint shooting numbers in the WisSports.net stats database. The top two players in each division based on shooting percentage (min. 75 attempts) will be selected to participate. Heading into this week Izzy Matzek is in fifth in Division III shooting just under 45% from beyond the arc.

Heading into this week the top records of girls basketball teams in the top half of the sectional bracket include Prescott (13-7), Baldwin-Woodville (15-5), Northwestern (13-7) and St. Croix Falls (16-4). The Cardinals have beaten both St. Croix Falls and Baldwin-Woodville. In the bottom half of the sectional, West Salem (17-3) leads the way, with Elk Mound (16-4), Wisconsin Dells (13-7), and Westby (12-7). West Salem is the only Division 3 team in the sectional ranked in the top 10.

For the boys, #2 ranked West Salem sports the best record in the sectional at 18-1. From the Cloverbelt Stanley- Boyd is 12-6 and Bloomer is 10-5. Prescott heads into the week 16-2, St. Croix Central 15-3, and Baldwin-Woodville 14-3. Heart O’ North Conference leader is 14-3 on the season.

Once again, the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association will begin selling one of the nation’s premiere sports yearbooks this month. The 30th anniversary edition of the WBCA yearbook includes summaries of every high school and college baseball team in the state. Two Prescott players have graced the cover of the ever-popular publication. Mike Brookshaw in 2015 and Peter Brookshaw in 2018. Yearbooks can be ordered online at www.baseballwisconsin. com Did you know … In 1949 LIFE Magazine decided to document the sport of boxing in the United States. Where did they go? The University of Wisconsin-Madison. The Badgers were the sport’s dominant program, winning eight national titles and hosting seven NCAA tournaments from the years college boxing was an official sport, from 1932 to 1960. Boxing matches in Madison, held in the University Fieldhouse, routinely drew more than 12,000 fans, with a record 15,200 people attending a team bout against Washington State in 1940. The NCAA dropped the sport after the 1960 season due to two deaths, one a Badger boxer by the name of Charlie Mohr who died after a bout with a boxer from San Jose State University.

Perennial NCAA Division III baseball power UWWhitewater is ranked #6 in the National College Baseball Coaches Preseason Poll and is surprisingly the only WIAC School listed among the top 25. Speaking of Wisconsin baseball, only three NCAA Division III Schools in the state do not field a varsity baseball team. They are Alverno College in downtown Milwaukee, Mount Mary – a women’s college in Milwaukee, and the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. What great company to have. Every Division III School in Wisconsin includes softball as a varsity sport.

Headshaker of the week. The NFL Pro Bowl? Silly. It’s a headshaker.

By Cripe Olson