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. We also declared 18 more programs official ‘On the Bubble’ teams, teams that earned sincere Power 25 consideration.

Today marks the start of our countdown to No. 1, the top-ranked team on the PBR Wisconsin Preseason Power 25. We’ll be releasing a team a day in our lead-up to No. 1, beginning today, with our No. 25 squad.

Team: Wrightstown
Preseason Rank: No. 25
2019 Record: 21-6
Conference: North Eastern
WIAA Class: D-2
Head Coach: Tom Eiting
Playoff Run: Regional Finalists
2019 Final Rank: On The Bubble
Returning Starters: 7
Returning Pitchers: 3 

OUTLOOK

The Tigers are returning many of the same faces that made last year’s 21-win season possible, and practically all of them are seniors. Wrightstown entered the 2019 Division-2 postseason as a No. 2 seed and were upended by conference rivals Denmark in their regional title game to cut their season shorter than they would have hoped.

It’s hard to conjure another program in the state affected by the season cancellation as harshly as Wrightstown. This senior-dominated roster was geared to win a second straight North Eastern Conference with season goals that stretched far beyond that.

There are four all-conference players returning to this team’s everyday lineup and one of the few non-seniors to rely on here, RHP Alex Windey (2021), is capable of blossoming into an authentic go-to arm. He’s a hulking 6-foot-4 righty with mid-80s stuff and the potential for swing-and-miss offspeed. Windey also swings a powerful right-handed bat and the more the merrier inside the Tigers’ lineup.

There would have been little reason to guess against Wrightstown in 2020. This group had everything on paper, driven by an early exit from the season prior, and they entered this season as one of the top D-2 contenders in a competitive classification.

SENIOR SPOTLIGHT

Seven everyday seniors were set to return to this lineup in 2020: SS Luke Renard (Judson commit), RHP/UTL J.T. Stengel, C Ben Jaeger, 2B Ben Durocher, OF Jeremy VanZeeland, OF Andrew Lamers, and OF Mitchell Eiting. Renard, Jaeger, and Stengel were each 2019 first team all-conference selections, while VanZeeland earned second team honors. Renard himself had emerged as a top prospect in the state’s senior class who consistently demonstrated an innate feel to hit. He hit .529 as a junior and plays a dependable second base.

Luke Renard (9/22/19)

Stengel was set to return as the team’s go-to arm had Windey not broken through to take the role; he hit .368 last year and groomed a miniscule 0.66 ERA, too. Jaeger hit .329 and VanZeeland hit .280 to further bolster this lineup.

Few teams in the state returned this kind of depth to its roster in 2020 and it’s a program that’ll look totally different come next spring.

'ON THE BUBBLE' TEAMS