Season not starting strong for Area prep baseball teams
The 2026 prep baseball season basically begun for all of the Tri-County Area teams last week.
Unfortunately none of the teams have gotten off to great starts. The best are at .500 so far.
Eleva-Strum looked to go 4-1 overall as they hosted Eau Claire Immanuel Lutheran on Tuesday, April 14 at Spangberg Field. Instead, the Cardinals were held to just four hits and were shutout 4-0 by the Lancers. All four of Immanuel's runs came in the sixth innings. E-S lost despite Noah Martinson's 11 strikeout performance. The Cardinals won't have time to dwell too much on this loss as they have key league game up coming vs. Blair-Taylor and at home vs. defending Large Dairyland champ Osseo-Fairchild on Tuesday, April 21 at 5 p.m. at Spangberg Field.
Speaking of the Thunder, they've struggled late last week into this week. After edging Whitehall 2-1 on Tuesday, April 14, O-F was shutout by Immanuel 2-0 in Eau Claire on Friday, April 10 and went scoreless again on Tuesday, April 17 against Blair-Taylor at home, losing 9-0. The Thunder (2-3 overall) have scored two runs in their last 21 innings and against B-T had 15 walks. Those two runs both came against the Norse as Drew Paulus tossed a one-hitter in four innings of work and teammates Tyler Smith and Drew Hanson both hit RBIs. i
They say there's no tying in baseball but Fall Creek had no choice but to tie Blair-Taylor 8-8 last week Thursday, April 9 due to lack of lights at the Wildcats' field and the game in extra innings. FC followed that game with a big win at home vs. Black River Falls 15-2 the very next day. This week the Crickets split the two Western Cloverbelt games they played against Elk Mound as per the schedule. They lost 3-2 at EM on Tuesday, April 14 but exploded for 17 runs off 14 hits for a 17-1 win. The Crickets are 3-3-1 overall, 1-1 in the WCC and play twice vs. Eau Claire Regis next week
Augusta got its first win of 2026 last week Thursday, April 9 at home vs. Thorp/Owen-Withee by a10-0 score. Owen Lee drove in two runs off a hit and stole two bases while Tyler Lee had two hits for the Beavers. Aiden Barnett was the winning pitcher. as AHS won in five. However it's still they're only win as they lost 14-2 at home to Blair-Taylor on Friday, April 10, held to just two hits by winning pitcher Beau Trapp, and they lost 8-2 at home to Cochrane-Fountain City on Tuesday, Owen Lee had two hits to lead the Beavers (1-4 overall) in that contest.
