I am Phil Ney with a look at Southwestern Wisconsin sports, W I a tournament volleyball tonight.
It's sectional semifinals. The winners will play on Saturday for the right to go to state.
Well, tonight's matches include Barnabelle hosting St. Ambrose and Southwestern will be at
Peccatanaca, also in division five tonight. DeSoto will play at Highland for the right to play
for the state final coming up on Saturday night. And in division four, it's Phenomore hosting
Cashton, both team surviving tough regionals, moving on to face either Cochran Fountain City
or Blair Taylor. And in division three, Aquinas will play at Luther and Middlewood Point will be
hosting Marshall. The winner of those two division three matches will come together and face off
for a championship on Saturday night here in Richland Center at Richland Center High School.
Sock Prairie will host Edgewood in sectional semifinal action as well.
The W I a boy soccer tournament continues this week. Sectional semifinals tonight,
Lake Mills will be hosting Madison Country Day. Also tonight, the team that end of the year for
River Valley, Brookfield Academy will face living word Lutheran as well.
Coming up this weekend that W I a state cross country meet, Richland Center,
Ithaca is making plans. I caught up with coach Eric Minnam this week.
Yeah, we've had a good week of practice so far. It's been cooler. Looking like it'll be a good day
this afternoon. Really just trying to stay fresh, stay relaxed. Get these guys there. Saturday is
healthy. As we can get them there. Yeah, at this point, you'd like to just go get it over with,
right? Get it going. Yeah, as much as I'm sure the guys would love to do some mile repeats,
I think they want to stay relaxed now and get to the race and they're fired up there ready to go.
Well, after the great performance on Saturday, I mean, your times are really good,
but they probably have to be as good or better this weekend, don't they?
I think so. Obviously, the best teams in the state are there this weekend. So,
if we want to achieve some of our goals, run where we think we can run,
we're going to have to find another level and I believe in the guys. I think they can do it.
Talk about the core set, Wisconsin Rapids. It ends going up hill, doesn't it?
It does. It's really unique. Awesome as a spectator. Terrible. If you're running it, I'm sure
to end on a hill after you've already put in three hard miles. So now the first mile is flat.
The top guys tend to get through that first mile in about five minutes flat or so.
And then you start working the hills in that second and third mile. They get pretty challenging at
that point, but yeah, we were familiar with the course. We've had runners on there the four
previous years. So a lot of the teammates have been up there and cheered them guys on and
Peeley Peterson too when she was running. So we feel like we have some familiarity with it.
Is it similar to any other course you've been on this year?
Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know that I could pin down one exact one. Certainly
at spots, it feels maybe like River Valley that first mile of just some small,
rowing hills and then it may be more like a phantom or a course where you're on Hickory Grove,
golf course, lot tougher hills that second, third mile. So I think that's what makes it a great
course is it's a really good combination. And so all the teams across the state that they run
in different conditions, different terrain, whatever else. It's a really good combination of everything.
When you get to the course on Saturday, do you typically walk it or maybe slightly jog it or
anything like that? Yep, we generally walk it and given that the course is one large loop,
it'll take us a little bit longer to walk it than maybe some other courses that we tend to. So
yeah, we're going to try to give ourselves plenty of time to get the kids up there, get familiar
with it, come up with some strategies on the spot if we need to and we want them as comfortable
as possible before that race. Eric Minden, head coach of the Richland Center,
Ithaca Cross Country teams, they'll run on Saturday at 1235 and we'll have reports from Wisconsin
Rapids on WRCO on Saturday. Also in local sports merchants bowling league, Kelly's coffee at a
2860 series high, bubbling springs photography 2764 and Gerner Farms 2739. High game honors,
Phoenix Center number two at 996, Goblin Insurance 987, Kelly's coffee at 981, Isaac Davison with
a 745 series, let the way Jeff Seckman a 718 and Sean Jacobson a 644, Jeff Seckman with a 278
game, Jacob Layton had a 256 and Isaac Davison with a high game of 254 third best in the merchants
league last night. The Wisconsin men's basketball team showed some improvements, especially on
defense in its second exhibition game Wednesday night, junior center, Nolan Winter scored 17 points
and had 15 rebounds in a 69 53 win over UW Plateville. The Badgers lost their first exhibition
game last week 84 83 against Oklahoma. The defensive effort was more effective against the smaller
Plateville squad. The regular season tips off with a five game homestand beginning Monday against
Campbell. He's been excellent so long. It's like the NBA observers were taking him for granted.
Buck superstar, Yana Santa de Cumpo is showing he's still at the top of his game. Sports illustrated
reports that former NBA big man Kendrick Perkins is watching Perkins posted on social media.
I know MB has put the world on notice, but Yana's is still the most dominant player in the league.
Yana's gets his next chance to stay at the top when the bucks play the golden state warriors
coming up this evening. Yesterday and last night in the NBA Houston 139 and Toronto 121
Boston 125 Cleveland 105 Detroit 135 Orlando 116 Atlanta 117 Brooklyn 112 Chicago
over Sacramento 126 113 Dallas 107 Indiana 105 Denver 122 New Orleans 88 Portland 136 Utah 134
the Lakers beat Minnesota 116 115 and Memphis over Phoenix 114 113
It's official second basement rice to rang gives the brewers the most bang for their buck
to rang's best major league season so far makes him the best value on the roster.
Reviewing the brew dot com reports that he hit 288 last season with a 359 on base percentage
and a 435 slugging that's 24% above average. He also put up seven defensive runs saved
and his paycheck $777,000, which is a drop in the bucket compared to other salaries,
especially the salaries of the Dodgers. Speaking of which, Trey Yassavage set a world series record
with 12 strikeouts and the blue jays open game five with back-to-back home runs in a 6-1 victory
over Los Angeles Dodgers that moved them within one win of their first championship since 1993.
Davis Schneider and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. connected on Blake Snell's first and third pitches
the first consecutive home runs to start a series game. Yassavage, a 22-year-old right-hander
who began his season pitching before 327 fans in class A broke the prior rookie record of 11
strikeouts set by Don Newcombe of the Dodgers in 1949. Toronto leads three two in the best of seven
matchup and can be thrown the defending champions back home when the series resumes Friday night
at Rodgers Center. Packers quarterback Jordan Love has been named the NFL Offensive Player
of the Week. Early in his career, he is beginning to reach the potential of front-office saw several
years ago. In his first 40 starts, Love has produced 16 games where he threw multiple touchdown
passes without being picked off. Only Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has topped that
efficiency in the history of the NFL with 19. The Packers Christian Watson was asked yesterday about
the offense. The Packers just showed our fight and our resilience, our belief in ourselves,
but I think the main thing just kind of showed we'll continue to show just what we can be when
we're clicking. Maybe we just got to find a way to do it for four quarters. The Packers getting
set for their next action coming up kickoff time noon on Sunday. The new NFL weekend begins this
evening. The Thursday night lineup pits the Baltimore Ravens at Miami. And I am Phil Neymar
with an update courtesy of WRCO Sports.