On Tuesday, April 21, the WIAA Board of Control asserted to cancel all 2020 spring competitions, baseball included. While saddened for the graduating class of 2020, the PBR Wisconsin staff will do its best to highlight what could have been this spring, in what was set to be an exciting campaign filled with intriguing storylines to know and players to follow.

We published our ‘Watchlist Squads’ post on Monday, April 20, spotlighting almost 20 need-to-know programs that fell short of official ‘Bubble’ or Power 25 status for our preseason team rankings. Today, and for the remainder of the week, we’re going to be individually detailing our ‘On the Bubble’ teams – teams that earned serious consideration for our Preseason Power 25 Rankings, but ultimately fell just short.

Our 2020 preseason coverage continues today.

Team: Onalaska
Preseason Rank: On The Bubble
2019 Record: 11-14
Conference: Mississippi Valley
WIAA Class: D-1
Head Coach: Larry Swiggum
Playoff Run: Regional Semifinalists
2019 Final Rank: NR
Returning Starters: 8
Returning Pitchers: 5 

OUTLOOK

The Hilltoppers had big hopes clinging to this 2020 spring season. On a senior-heavy squad, Onalaska was also set to inject their lineup with transfer Jess Ondell (2020; Winona State commit), who hit .476 as only a freshman for La Crosse Aquinas in a D-3 title-winning season. Ondell was only able to play three more high school games since, suffering an injury as a sophomore, transferring and losing eligibility as a junior, and the subsequent cancellation of this 2020 spring season.

Ondell was going to motor a lineup that already features some next-level talent: 1B Carter Stobb (2020), a premium hockey recruit, INF Nick Pica (2020; Concordia, WI), OF Griffin Janikowski (2020), and RHP/3B Conner Haggerty (2020).

Juniors like Michael Savarin, Mason Manglitz, Evan Gamoke, and Maddox Hoff will, however, be back with a vengeance next spring.

Holmen had dominated the past two springs of baseball in the MVC, but they were in a transitional season and all of a sudden the conference looked up for grabs at the perfect moment for the Hilltoppers. We’re disappointed Ona won’t get the chance to realize what could have been a historic spring campaign for this program.

SENIOR SPOTLIGHT

We previously discussed Ondell’s special, memorable freshman season for the Blugolds and we were especially eager to see him back in action. Pica had previously been among the more interesting unsigned prospects in the state’s senior class before committing to Concordia (WI) recently. Haggerty and Janikowski were both important two-way talents for the ‘toppers and were enough of a duo on staff to push Onalaska to the top of the MVC. We’re feeling for this group, missing out on what would have been a memorable season for the head coach Larry Swiggum’s program.

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