Girls Head Basketball Coach Owen Hamilton and the defending Middle Border Conference Champion Cardinals began practice this week. Hamilton, a second-year head coach, expects around 25 girls out this season. Leading scorer and rebounder senior Lila Posthuma returns as does sophomore Violet Otto, who averaged in double figures a season ago. Also returning will be junior forward Leah French and senior guard Avery Pattridge. Hamilton expects Somerset and Altoona to challenge for the top of a conference that Hamilton believes will be better from top to bottom from a year ago. 

And speaking of girls basketball, there were 114 head coaches who resigned after the 2022-23 season. That is over 20% of girls basketball programs in Wisconsin, continuing a trend around the country when it comes to people leaving the coaching profession. 

Word on the street is the Amery School District will begin placing artificial turf on both their football and baseball fields late this spring and be ready for the 2024-25 school year. 

Two Middle Border Conference teams, Baldwin-Woodville and Rice Lake will play this week for a chance to play in the WIAA State Championship game at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison. Baldwin-Woodville will square off against Lodi in a semi-final after their 63-26 victory over Somerset. Conference champion Rice Lake will take on private school Green Bay Notre Dame after their 58-36 quarterfinal victory over Onalaska. The Rice Lake Warriors have advanced to the title game seven times, winning championships in 1979 and 2017.  Baldwin-Woodville has qualified for the finals on four occasions, winning gold in 1987 and in 1992. 

The Michigan Tech women's basketball team has been selected to finish third in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Women's Basketball Preseason Poll and open the regular season on Saturday at home against William Jewell University. A 2021 Prescott alumna, Isabella Lenz, was named Preseason First Team All-Conference. As a sophomore, Lenz led the 25-7 Huskies in scoring and assists and was named 1st Team All-Conference. A three-sport all-conference selection in high school, Lenz is among the most accomplished student-athletes in Prescott High School history. Sure fans remember her 53-point game against River Falls and how she helped lead the Cardinal softball team to a state tournament. However, what many people also remember about Lenz was, and is, her humility. A high honors student, Lenz’s tremendous success in the classroom and in athletics never led to any kind of boastful commentary or braggadocio behavior. Lenz played with a kind of intensity void of circus-like game celebrations and banshee screams toward the sky after sinking three pointers. Unquestionably Isabella Lenz is among the most humble student-athletes to ever walk the hallways of Prescott High School. Young Prescott athletes, you want a role model? You need look no further than Isabella Lenz. 

Bravo to local artist Trevor Hughes and local baseball aficionado Dallas Eggers on the artwork recently added to the baseball shed at Firehall Field. The catcher illustration has received many drive-by double takes over the last two months. Well done. 

From the Department of Natural Resources: The DNR confirmed the first positive test result for chronic wasting disease (CWD) in a wild deer in Polk County. The deer was harvested in the town of Apple River and is within 10 miles of the Barron County border. This detection will cause the following: Polk County will begin a three-year baiting and feeding ban on Dec. 1 and Barron County will renew the ban already in place. The deer was a hunter-harvested 3-year-old doe and is the first confirmed wild deer CWD-positive detected in Polk County. The DNR and the Polk County Deer Advisory Council will be hosting a public meeting on Thursday, Nov. 9 at 5:30 p.m. DNR staff will provide information about CWD in Wisconsin and local CWD testing efforts and disease surveillance options.

Headshaker of the week. In June 2021, the NCAA implemented a policy on name, image and likeness, or NIL, allowing student-athletes to make money from their personal brand. Some of you may know the state of Minnesota along with a handful of other state high school athletic associations — Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York and Utah —allow their student-athletes to participate in NIL without jeopardizing their high school eligibility. Thank goodness Wisconsin prohibits high school athletes from benefiting from NIL. Allowing athletes at the high school level to make money connected to prep sports is just another falling domino on what will become the eventual demise of high school sports in the United States. High school athletes' devotion and dedication to their school and childhood teammates is being replaced by allegiance to club teams and AAU tournaments. It is very, very sad. And, it’s a headshaker.