Whippet

WHS Baseball Takes Down Brodhead

Hunter Martin throws a pitch against Brodhead.

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Article by Nate Parrish

The Whitewater High School baseball team opened the 2018 season with a win over Brodhead at home by a score of 11-2 (Box Score   ). Hunter Martin picked up the win in his first varsity outing by going 3 innings with no hits, 4 walks, and 2 earned runs. James Dedrick came in relief in the 4th inning surrendering 2 hits but no runs on 5 walks. The bats started out a little slow but got going as the game went along scoring 1 run in the 2nd inning, 2 runs in the 3rd and 8 runs in the 5th to break open the game. Jimmy Duval was 3-4 with a double and 2 RBI’s, Dylan Pease was 2-3 with 3 RBIs and Jordan Curtis was 2-4 with an RBI. Whitewater banged out 9 hits during the game. Coach Pease said he was happy to get the first one out of the way and walk away with a win but the team will need to cut down on the walks and hitters need stay off bad pitches early in the count to meet some of our goals. The next game will be Thursday, March 29 at Brodhead High School with 1st pitch at 4:45 pm.

Rock Valley Conference is in its first season having 10 teams and is no longer split into a North and South. The conference is deep this year with 3 teams ranked in the Division 2 Preseason top 10 with other teams looking to make a run at the Conference Title. The conference favorites are Beloit Turner, who lost in the State Tournament last year, Jefferson which lost in Sectionals, Evansville which returns a large percentage of its line up and finished 2nd in the conference last spring along with Whitewater which returns five 1st or 2nd team all-conference players. There are also a number of other teams that bring back experienced players that will want to have a say in how things shake out. It should be an exciting season in the Rock Valley Conference.

WHS Competes at New Berlin West Track Invitational

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From Coach Houwers:

The Whippets track and field teams competed hard today at New Berlin West.  Both teams were somewhat limited with a number of students heading out on spring break, but they still competed hard and had a good showing.  Sashi Popke won the pole vault with a new best of 13 feet, making his first top ten list.  That ties him for the 6th best performance in WHS history.

Ali Ketterhagen did a great job in the high jump today, winning with a jump of 4′ 6″.  She hadn’t jumped in two years, so it was great to see her come back and have success.  It was particularly impressive given the fact she was in a knee brace.

Abby Grosinske threw the shot today for the first time.  She won with a throw of 27′ 11.5″.  She tied, but had a better second throw to win on the tie-breaker.

A number of freshmen and “new to track” athletes got their first experience today.  I was really happy how hard they competed.  Tyler Pavlik impressed.  He got to run his first 400 in a relay today.  He got out hard, found out what the 400 can feel like, and said he liked it.  Track coaches love to have kids that like the 400.  Thomas Uteynik, Ignacio Cuevas, and others got their first races, and impressed.  For the girls, Amanda Tovar, Lily Dunklau, Kathryn Donner and Bailee Korf all ran well in their first taste of a varsity meet.  I’m excited to see how the teams develop over the year.

Pair of Whippets Compete at State Wrestling

Article by John J. Schimming, Photos by Bob Mischka

On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday Tyler Gamble and Jimmy DuVal participated in the 75th annual WIAA State Individual Wrestling Tournament. Each weight class in Division 2 consists of 12 student-athletes looking to reach the top of the podium or at the very least the top six on the podium.

The tournament started with Gamble competing on Thursday night in a first-round match against a young man from Amery. Tyler made quick work of his opponent pinning him in an amazing 24 seconds. This put Tyler into the Friday competition and among the top 8. Tyler came out on Friday morning and secured the first takedown but then was unable to score more from that point, dropping his match 6-2. The loss put Tyler in the wrestleback against a competitor from Viroqua. Tyler wrestled well but just was unable to score against a very good opponent and lost 4-1, thus ending Tyler’s high school wrestling career. Tyler had set his goal to wrestle in the Kohl center and had the opportunity to close out his career on the floor there. He has nothing to be ashamed of.

Because Jimmy DuVal won his sectional he benefited from not having to compete until Friday morning. In his quarterfinal match, he was pitted against a very good defensive wrestler and wrestled a very good match coming out ahead 2-1. This put Jimmy into the semi-finals against an extremely athletic, quick student-athlete from Lodi. Jimmy wrestled his heart out but came up short 11-4 putting him into the wrestleback on Saturday morning. In the first match Saturday, Jimmy wrestled the best match the coaching staff had ever seen him wrestle. He was pitted against the young man who had kept him off the podium last season so he was very motivated. Jimmy was aggressive and maintained great control throughout the match. When it was over Jimmy found himself on top 6-2 and in the 3rd place match. In Jimmy’s final match as a whippet wrestler, he wrestled well but was unable to come away with the victory dropping the match thus placing him in 4th place. This was an outstanding accomplishment for DuVal as the top 6 guys are all very good wrestlers.

DuVal closed out his senior season with 118 wins (4th in school history) 44 wins in a season (1st in school history) and placed 4th in the state tournament, highest finish for a whippet wrestler since 2006. Congratulations on a great career.

Great job to both student-athletes on the great accomplishment of reaching the state tournament. Thank you to all the fans who drove to Madison or followed from home.

Whitewater Girls Basketball 61 Clinton 51

Photos by Peter Mischka, courtesy of Bob Mischka

Whippet girls basketball earned a win over Clinton 61-51 to finish out the regular season at home.  Allison Heckert led Whitewater with 21, and Kacie Carollo 19.

Whippets will host Shoreland Lutheran in the first round of WIAA tournament on Friday at 7:00 PM.

Clinton won the JV1 and JV2 games.