WBA PAIRINGS SET - Osprey, Ticks are 1-seeds in Rib Lake; Reds, Moon Dogs and Trojans get 2s
Five Taylor County teams now know who, where and when they will be playing next weekend in the regional round of the Wisconsin Baseball Association’s post-season tournament.
The Interwald Woodticks, Rib Lake Osprey, Whittlesey Reds, Westboro Trojans and Medford Moon Dogs all will compete in the B Division of the tournament. This is the second year of the WBA’s two-division format. In all, 48 of the WBA’s 57 teams are included in the brackets with 24 being placed in each division. From the 16-team Dairyland League, only Merrill, who went 4-9 in the Large Division, and Spirit, who went 0-7 in the Small Division, are not in the tournament.
The WBA’s seeding meeting was held Tuesday night in Eau Claire.
Rib Lake and Abbotsford are both serving as regional sites for the B Division’s opening weekend Aug. 8-10.
In Rib Lake, the host Osprey drew the one seed in their three-team pod and will face the third-seeded Bloomer Woodticks in the opening game at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. The loser will face the second-seeded Plum City Blues at 3 p.m. on Saturday, while the winner will play Plum City at noon on Sunday. Rib Lake finished second in the Dairyland Small at 6-1. Plum City was 5-9 in one of the WBA’s top leagues, the St. Croix Valley Baseball League, while Bloomer went 3-17 in the Chippewa River Baseball League’s North Division.
In the other Rib Lake bracket, the Dairyland Small champion Interwald Woodticks (7-0), also drew a one-seed and won’t play until 6 p.m. on Saturday. That’s when they’ll face the loser of a noon game from day between two-seed Iron City and three-seed Norwalk. Iron City went 5-5 this summer in the Upper 13 League, while Norwalk was 3-8 in the Mississippi Valley League.
Whittlesey will play its regional games close to home in Abbotsford. The Reds drew the two-seed in their pod and will play the third-seeded Ashland Merchants at 1 p.m. on Saturday at Red Arrow Park. The Elmwood Expos are the top seed in the pod and will play the 1 p.m. loser at 7 p.m. on Saturday and then face the 1 p.m. winner to close out the regional at 3 p.m. on Sunday. Elmwood, last year’s B Division runnerup, earned its high seed with an 8-6 fourth-place finish in the St. Croix Valley, while Ashland was 3-6 in the Upper 13, good for fifth place. The Reds were 4-1 to start the summer in the Dairyland’s Large Division but had a tough time in the back half and finished 5-9.
The host Abbotsford Merchants are the one-seed in the other pod and will play the second-seeded Bay City Bombers at 7 p.m. Friday before matching up with third-seeded Bangor either at 4 p.m. Saturday or at noon on Sunday.
Medford, making its first WBA postseason appearance since 2018, was assigned to the Augusta regional. Playing as a two-seed, the Moon Dogs will face the third-seeded Augusta Athletics at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. The loser takes on the top-seeded Ellsworth Hubbers at 4 p.m. on Saturday while the winner plays Ellsworth at 1 p.m. on Sunday. Ellsworth tied for fifth in the St. Croix Valley with a 7-7 record, while Augusta was 2-18 in the Chippewa River South. Medford took fourth in the Dairyland Small with a 4-3 record.
The Westboro Trojans will travel north to Glidden, where they will play as the two-seed. They’ll face top-seeded Glidden at 9 a.m. on Saturday. The New Richmond Millers will face the loser at noon and the winner at 3 p.m. in a oneday bracket. New Richmond beat Westboro 13-3 in last year’s Augusta regional. The Millers struggled this year in the St. Croix Valley League, going 3-11. Glidden was a perfect 10-0 in the Upper 13.
Champions of the eight three-team groupings in each division will advance to the championship weekend Aug. 15-17. The B Division championship tournament will be playing in Augusta while Hayward hosts the A Division finals.
Among the other Dairyland League Small teams, third-place Tony (5-2) will join Medford at Augusta but play in the other bracket, along with seventh-place Tomahawk who snuck into the tournament despite its 1-6 league record. Sixth-place Pittsville (2-5) is the two-seed at a three-team regional in Osceola.
Dairyland Large champion Wisconsin Rapids hosts an A Division regional that includes Large runner-up Everest in the other bracket. Marshfield and Minocqua will play in opposite brackets at the Osseo regional and Rhinelander was shipped to the River Falls regional, where it will play Hudson and Tilden.
River Falls is the defending A Division champion. The Fighting Fish beat Tilden 13-2 in last year’s title game. Osceola beat Elmwood 11-6 in last year’s B Division title game, which was played in Whittlesey. Osceola beat Rib Lake 6-3 in one semifinal, while Elmwood beat Interwald 9-4 in the other semifinal.
Game times listed below weren’t fully official as of Wednesday morning and were subject to change.
