Senior Dallas Wallin played the last game of his high school career in a Prescott gymnasium. With his 21 points in Saturday's regional final victory over Osceola, Wallin has scored 1,677 career points, the third highest total in Prescott boys basketball history. Additionally, the talented senior has grabbed what is believed to be a school record 865 rebounds. Congratulations to Dallas Wallin on what has been a stellar prep career. 

Head Basketball Coach Nick Johnson now has an impressive overall coaching record of 261-61. 

The Prescott Play Ball Spring Banquet will be held at the Old Ptacek’s Event Center on Friday, March 22. This year’s featured speaker is KFAN Radio Personality Dave Sinykin. Games, auction items, and raffle prizes are among some of the events planned for the evening. The program will include season summaries, presentation of awards, and will culminate with Sinykin as the featured speaker. Tickets are $30 and will be available for purchase soon. Doors will open at 6 p.m. 

Bella Lenz and the Michigan Tech Huskies finished the regular season splitting their final two games of the conference season. The Huskies throttled Davenport University by a score of 91-64 but fell to #2-ranked Grand Valley State by a score of 57-46. The Huskies finished 11-7 in conference play and will host Kenosha-Parkside in the first round of the conference tournament. A 2021 Prescott alumnus, Lenz has now scored 914 career points for the Huskies. 

Today, the mid-range jumper in basketball has all but been eliminated in high school basketball. The offensive game is primarily focused on three things: three pointers, drives to the basket, and offensive rebound put backs. Shots inside the three-point line from the freethrow elbow or the baseline have all but disappeared. Consequently, the 10 to 12-footer off the backboard has all but vanished. Just another change in the evolution of today's game of basketball. 

Huh. Three of the four schools that have advanced to the WIAA Division 3 Girls Basketball State Tournament are private schools. The lone public school is Baldwin-Woodville who is making their first ever trip to the state tournament. The champions of the Middle Border Conference will play #1 seed Madison Edgewood this Thursday at 1:35 p.m.

From the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources: Earlier this week the DNR announced a fee increase for nonresident archery and crossbow hunting licenses. This change is the result of Gov. Tony Evers signing Senate Bill 780, now 2023 Wisconsin Act 99. New 2024 licenses are now available for purchase. The nonresident archery and crossbow licenses fees increased $35, from $165 to $200 per customer. New buyers of nonresident archer licenses fees increased $17, from $82.75 to $99.75 per customer. This change brings the cost of archer and crossbow licenses in alignment with the cost of a firearm license.

Bemidji State outfielder Hunter Daymond clubbed a three-run homerun in game two of a Saturday doubleheader against William Jewell (Mo,) and helped the Beavers defeat the Cardinals by a score of 8-7. Bemidji State travels to Sioux Falls, SD this weekend for a four-game conference series with Augustana University. Bemidji State is a NCAA Division 2 school that competes in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference. Daymond is a 2019 Prescott graduate. 

Prescott spring sports are fast approaching. The Prescott girls’ softball team begins practice this coming Monday. The Cardinals are coming off a 21-win season and are expecting to challenge for the Middle Border Conference title this spring. Prescott shared the championship last season with Baldwin-Woodville, who is also expected to be among the top teams in the league. Prescott Cardinal baseball pitchers and catchers also begin practice this week. Southwest State (Minn.) recruit Cullen Huppert will be among the leaders of a Cardinals pitching staff that returns nine hurlers from last season. Practice for all baseball players begins on March 18. The Cardinal boys and girls track teams coached by Emily and Carl Calabrese have begun practice this week. It looks as if Mother Nature will allow the largest athletic teams in Prescott to utilize the track at Laney Field much sooner than any time in recent history. The Prescott boys’ golf team, coached by Scott Hamilton, will be the last spring sport to start their season. Hamilton and his charges start their season on March 25. 

Headshaker of the week: During tournament games last week just before pre-game warmups, a number of fans, both home and away, sauntered onto and across the high school gymnasium floor to their seats. I guess in their minds they were thinking “the shortest distance between two points is a straight line” so I’ll just walk across the court. Who knows? Perhaps it is your way to announce you have arrived. I do know this, it’s a great way to bring mud, sand, and gravel onto the court. It’s a headshaker.