Congratulations to Dain Pechacek on receiving a Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association Academic Scholarship. The award puts quite a bookend on the senior season for the Middle Border Conference Player of the Year. Pechacek is one of six seniors to be recognized by the WBCA for outstanding performance in the classroom. The WBCA Northwest District Division 2 Player of the Year, Pechacek will attend the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in the fall. 

The WIAA Advisory Board turned down Wisconsin basketball coaches’ recommendations to implement the shot clock and expand the State Tournament number of qualifiers to eight in all divisions. The board did approve recommendations connected to tournament seeding. Language to the seeding process will now include consideration of both team’s own win percentage and a team’s overall strength of schedule. Thank goodness the WIAA Advisory Board did not buckle to this AAU influenced shot clock recommendation. Phew! 

It’s hard to believe that next month the Prescott High School football team will be hosting Northwestern in the 2025 opener for both teams. The Cardinal volleyball team opens their season in August at the Osceola Invitational, hoping to build on their incredible tournament run last year.  The boys and girls cross country teams will host a 10-team invitational at the end of next month. And the powerful Prescott girls golf team travels to Reedsburg in mid-August hoping to add more hardware to their overflowing trophy case. Sorry kids, school supply commercials and store sales will also begin soon.  

Soon to be Prescott Cardinal senior Violet Otto has received a number of basketball scholarship offers over the last few months. The talented soon-to-be senior will enter her senior season with 1,126 career points. The senior combo guard has received official offers from Bemidji State, Northern State, and the University of Jamestown - all NCAA Division 2 schools that compete in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference. Additionally, Otto has received an offer from NCAA Division 1 School San Jose State. The Spartans play in the Mountain West Conference. 

The Prescott Hall of Fame Committee has received additional nominations for induction into the Prescott Hall of Fame this coming October. Committee members will be meeting this month reading and scoring nominations using detailed, objective rubrics. The 2025 inductees will be announced the first week of August with the induction ceremony scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 4 in the Prescott High School Commons. Stay tuned for further details. 

From the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources: The DNR will join law enforcement agencies nationwide for Operation Dry Water, an annual campaign to prevent boating while impaired to keep waters safe for all during the July 4-6 holiday weekend. Boating under the influence is illegal in Wisconsin. Impairment from alcohol or drugs significantly increases the risk of incidents, injuries and fatalities. Nationally, alcohol continues to be the leading known contributing factor in recreational boater fatalities and a significant cause of boating incidents, according to the most recent U.S. Coast Guard Recreational Boating Statistics.

Headshaker of the week: The Major League All-Star Game is fast approaching. The 2025 Summer Classic will be held at Truist Park, the home of the Atlanta Braves. Phase I of fan voting ended last week with Phase 2 set to begin soon. It wasn’t always done this way. Gone are the All-Star punch cards ushers used to hand out to fans at Major League stadiums - the primary way fans voted for their favorite players decades ago. Let’s be clear, for years fans selected players with star power, those with name recognition, and it didn’t matter if Reggie Jackson’s batting average was hovering around the “Mendoza Line.” (a reference to the career .200 batting average of former Major League Shortstop Mario Mendoza). Today, All Star Voting is much different. Fans can vote up to five times a day for over two weeks and after the first round of balloting, fans can vote again. Before 1997, there was something intriguing about players from both leagues facing off in the middle of the summer, playing for league “bragging rights.’ Also, the game was enhanced knowing the only other time teams from the two leagues would square off would be in the World Series. So for me today’s Major League All-Star game has lost its kitsch. And the baseball knowledge of many voters today is certainly suspect. They include the person voting while sipping an iced drink at a national coffee chain, the woman casting their ballot because of a Tik Tok video, or a man checking boxes while watching the latest episode of “Love Island.” Today’s All-Star Game voting process? It’s a headshaker.