The 2024 Wisconsin high school baseball season is here and, as usual, excitement is abound throughout the state. Players and coaches have been working in preparation for the spring season and, as is the case each year, there are some very talented players and teams across the Badger State.

Teams across the state have goals and aspirations to finish their seasons in their respective WIAA Division State Championship, but there is plenty of work to be done before that becomes reality. In the weeks leading up to the opening day, we released our initial Power 25 Rankings, which can be found here. Now we will take a look at teams that earned Power 25 consideration with these 'Teams to Watch' pieces.

Please keep checking back throughout the season as we will be your one-stop shop for everything related to high school baseball across Wisconsin. Each week we will be releasing our Power 25, Players of the Week, Diamond Notes, Scout Blog and much more.

Our 2024 season coverage continues today.  

High School: Chippewa Falls Cardinals
Head Coach: Mitch Steinmetz
WIAA Division: 1
Conference: Big Rivers
2023 Record (Finish): 17-9 (Regional Finalists)

Key Players Lost: Liam Brennan

 

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NAME	STATE	CLASS	POS	COMMITMENT
Easton Bobb	WI	2024	LHP	University of St. Thomas
Jakeb Lequia	WI	2024	RHP/INF	Milwaukee Area Technical JC
Preston Alger	WI	2024	INF	-
Cole Perlberg	WI	2025	INF/RHP	-
Gavin Thompson	WI	2026	UTIL	-

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TEAM OUTLOOK

Chippewa Falls wound up surprising a couple of teams during the regular season in 2023, and now look to maintain that momentum entering the 2024 season.

The Cardinals—under head coach Mitch Steinmetz—are powered by their starting pitching. It starts with their bonafide ace in LHP Easton Bobb (2024; St. Thomas (MN) commit), who owned a 5-1 record with a 2.38 ERA last spring. Bobb is a competitive left-hander who has proven to get outs at a high level—using a three-pitch mix to navigate opposing lineups.

RHP/INF Jakeb Lequia (2024; Milwaukee Area Technical JC) is a mid-80s arm that burst onto the scene for Chippewa Falls last season, and now enters 2024 as a quality complement to Bobb. Lequia showed well at the Top Prospect Games in Milwaukee this past summer before finding success on the summer circuit.

On the offensive end, the Cardinals demonstrated their ability to manufacture runs on a consistent basis last year—finishing in second place in a stacked Big Rivers Conference. INF/RHP Cole Perlberg (2025), a winner from the summer, leads the way for the Cardinals from the left side of the plate. He will be joined by INF Preston Alger (2024) and UTL Gavin Thompson (2026) as members of the lineup who will need to produce at a high rate in order for Chippewa Falls to execute a similar formula from last year.

The Cardinals play solid defense and have a couple of arms to work with in their rotation—making them a tough opponent any time they take the field in 2024 up in the northwest portion of the Badger State.

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2024 PRESEASON POWER 25 PREVIEWS