Prep Baseball Report

Updated Wisconsin Power 25 Team Rankings


By Andy Sroka
Staff Writer

In today’s Power 25 update, we’ll take a look at how the rankings shook out after Regionals were played last week, considering we do have some upsets to report. Four ranked teams saw their seasons end: Waterford, Wilmot, Beaver Dam, and Beloit Turner. Apart from those teams, the teams you expected would win, won, keeping the top half of the Power 25 mostly unchanged.

Tomorrow, June 5, teams across the state will be participating in the WIAA Sectional semifinals and finals, making for a long day of action to determine which teams are headed to State quarterfinals on June 12. Let this Power 25 update serve as a preview for tomorrow’s Sectional action as well.

EARLY OUTS

As previously mentioned in the opening paragraph, four teams on our Power 25 were ousted from the postseason after losing in last week’s Regional play. Waterford fell to Westosha Central, Kenosha Bradford beat Wilmot, Oconomowoc downed Beaver Dam, and Division-2 Beloit Turner, ranked No. 1 in their Regional, lost to Edgerton.

Westosha Central’s win lifted them to the No. 19 spot in the Power 25, while Oshkosh West was subsequently bumped up to No. 24 and Kenosha Bradford found its way back onto the top 25 for the first time in six weeks.

None of the games above were monumental upsets – Edgerton’s win probably was the unlikeliest – but it does cut the active members of the Power 25 to 21. That number will drastically decrease after tomorrow’s Sectional semifinals and title games.

TOMORROW’S SECTIONALS

At Eau Claire North, their neighborhood rivals Memorial will be taking on Stevens Point in a Power 25 head-to-head match-up. On the other side of the bracket, North will take on Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln. If the higher ranked North and Memorial both win their semifinal games, they’ll play each other in the Sectional final later in the day. They last played each other in mid-May for a two-game series, in which they both came away with a win.

Hosts Appleton East will feature four Power 25-ranked teams: No. 3 West De Pere, No. 14 Hortonville, No. 16 Kimberly, and No. 24 Oshkosh West. West Depere and Oshkosh West will be the site’s first game of the day, taking place at 10 a.m. This game is particularly interesting because, while De Pere ran through their Bay Conference competition, this will mark their first meeting with a Power 25 team all season. Kimberly’s game with Horotoville is much more obviously appealing with the Papermakers as the reigning D-1 champs and Hortonville playing its best baseball of the season over the past few weeks.

Oconomowoc is hosting heavyweights Sun Prairie and Arrowhead in Sectional No. 6. The Raccoons scuffled in May and had been off the Power 25 for the past month or so, but their big win over ranked Beaver Dam last week has them playing Arrowhead, the No. 2-ranked team in the state, for a shot at a Sectional title berth later in the day. The winner of that game will play the winner of Hartford and Sun Prairie. The Cardinals probably anticipated playing Watertown but Hartford upset them in their contest last week. If Sun Prairie and Arrowhead win their semifinal games, it’ll set up a Sectional championship game against two teams that have been within the top six all season, and have occupied the top-two spots over the last five weeks.

In Sectional No. 8, Kenosha Tremper will be hosting a slate of games with four Power-25 ranked squads. Tremper, the Sectional’s No. 1-ranked team, will bring its top-10 state ranking to their meeting with Westosha Central, a team that’s already been tested early. Central beat ranked Waterford last week to get to the Sectional semis. They’ve only recently asserted their position on the Power 25, spending much of the first parts of the season as a bubble team. Their story is similar to Burlington’s, a team that spent a lot of time ranked in the 20s on the top-25 list or within the bubble section. They’ll be playing Kenosha Bradford, the group that took down Wilmot in an upset last week.


CLICK HERE to view updated Power 25 Team Rankings

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