Sports

The Whitewater Invite on Tuesday, August 20 was a rather long day with many logistical problems. In order to help out a couple of teams that had some schools back out of their quad, the Whitewater Quad ended up with six teams. In order for this to work, it was going to require some schools moving back and forth between Whitewater and Fort Atkinson. The weather decided to make things even more difficult with a few rain delays in Whitewater, which forced even more teams to move to Fort. Of course a half an hour after teams moved to Fort it rained at the Aquatic Center courts, but not over at the Fort Atkinson High School courts. With all of the delays and moving around there were a few teams that were only able to get two matches in, and others were able to get all three in.

Whitewater was one of the schools that only finished two of their matches with 6-1 wins over both West Salem and Fort Atkinson.

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Photos of Kaitlyn Partoll Courtesy of Bob Mischka

Coach Tim Nelson stated, “I was quite pleased with how we played today. We showed improvement from yesterday’s quad and continued to make the strides that we need to. The match of the day was between Kaitlyn Partoll and Olivia Granec of Fort. The two girls played a number of incredible points in a match that went back and forth before Kaitlyn was able to pull it out with the closest of super tie-break scores.” Wednesday the Whippets headed up to Altoona to participate in the Altoona Invite on Thursday and Friday.

The Whippet victories secured the 300th career win for Coach Tim Nelson.

The Whippets started their 2019 tennis season at the East Troy Quad on Monday, August 19, facing some very solid competition. East Troy went 3-0 on the day taking the championship followed by Union Grove at 2-1, Whitewater at 1-2, and Monroe at 0-3.

Coach Tim Nelson stated, “We are going to face some growing pains to begin the season as we have several new players and many others that have had to move up quite a bit in the line-up. Today I felt that we were moving in the right direction. Every match the kids played better;  they started making strides in many areas and did what we needed to do to start improving. We definitely have things that we need to work on, but that is what these early matches are good for, showing where your strengths and weaknesses are and what you need to do to get better.”

The team was right back at it on Tuesday with three more matches in the Whitewater Quad.

Pictured are Alyssa Schumacher (left) and Morgan Gransee (right) holding their certificates for making the All-District Softball Team this past season. Schumacher made the team as a catcher while Gransee was selected as an outfielder.  Both players also made first team all-conference along with Bryce Hibbs and Sara Johnson.

In addition, Whitewater put three softball players on the Academic All-State Team. To be considered for this award the players must be seniors who have a 3.50 or higher cumulative GPA. Receiving this honor in softball were Jocelin Beecroft, Sara Johnson, and Catherine Yang.

On Sunday the Whitewater Buehler Law Office 14U softball team completed their season. Although the final game was not a win for the girls they had a very successful year finishing 12-4-1 on the season in Quad County Rec play.

In tournament action this weekend the girls started off on Friday night with a late game vs Big Foot, starting at 9:00. Big Foot is a very competitive team whom the girls defeated earlier this year 16-14 and tied 8-8. Yet again the young Chiefs and the young Whippet girls had a barn burner of a game. Whitewater was down five in the last inning and proceeded to score six in their bottom half to win the game 9-8, pushing them into the semi final game.

Against Lakeland the girls played very well, down only 1-0 in the 5th against a team that had outscored their opponents 118-16 in their last 6 games leading up to our game. Unfortunately the girls could not get their bats going and did end up losing 9-1. This put the girls in the 2nd place game against East Troy.

Yet again the girls were down going into the last inning, this time by six. They began to play much smarter ball and were more patient at the plate. The girls were able to get their six to force extra innings. Unfortunately the girls gave up one in the extra inning and lost 10-9 to finish in 3rd place. 

Although the girls did lose that last game, I was proud of how they battled back when down by a lot to force extra innings. They showed a lot of heart in their last game of the season together.

As a coach it was very fun working with these young ladies and I look forward to watching them in the future as they grow as players. Thank you to the girls for a great season that provided a lot of excitement. Thank you to the parents for your support of the girls. Thank you to Josh Kubicz for his help coaching. It was a fun summer.

Article Submitted by John Schimming

July 17 (Daily Jefferson County Union) – Justin Wegner, a former catcher for the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater baseball team who battled a rare form of cancer for more than three years, died last week. He was 22.

A celebration of Wegner’s life will take place at St. Raphael Catholic Church at 1215 Modaff Rd. in Naperville, Ill., this Thursday, July 18, with visitation from 4 to 9 p.m. Funeral mass Friday, July 19 at the church starting at 10:30 a.m.

Wegner played for the Warhawks in 2016, batting .250 with one home run and had nine RBIs during 24 games, including 14 starts. A member of the WIAC Scholastic Honor Roll, Wegner helped UW-Whitewater reach the NCAA Division III World Series that season after winning the NCAA Central Regional in Sauget, Ill.

Following the 2016 season, Wegner was diagnosed with a rare type of soft tissue sarcoma, a type of cancer.

Wegner captivated hundreds of student-athletes at UW-Whitewater, which held fundraisers for his #JwegStrong campaign during several athletics events.

Members of the UW-Whitewater community took to social media to share memories of the courageous battle Wegner fought.