A tour with New Richmond High School athletic director Casey Eckardt last week showed that the athletic facilities at the new high school are progressing nicely.
All of the facilities appear that they will be ready for their seasons for the 2010-11 school year. The first athletic activity at the new school will take place Monday, when the weight room is opened to the Tiger Strength program.
It might be easiest to break down the facilities by sport.

Fall sports
The Tiger football team will have two practice fields behind the new high school. This is part of a large green space that is being shared with the soccer team. This green space is located adjacent to the varsity softball field.
The football team will continue to play its games at the old high school field. There is a track/soccer field/football field that has been built into the new facility. It will be used for track practices and for varsity soccer games. Because there are not lights at the facility and won’t be for the foreseeable future, the football games will continue to be played under the lights on the old field.
Soccer will practice and play its games at the new school. The games will be played on the field inside the track. The track is a broken-back style track, which is a bit wider than the conventional style. This allowed space for the football field and soccer field to be placed inside of the track.
Tennis will play on the new courts at the high school this fall. There are 10 courts on the tiered area, four on the upper tier and six on the lower tier. When New Richmond hosts tournaments, they will also use the courts at the old high school, giving them 18 courts to use.
Volleyball will have three full courts available in the new gym. For games, the freshman and JV teams will be able to play at the same time. When their games are done, the bleachers can be brought in further, with the varsity playing at center court.
Cross country will start its practices from the high school. The cross country meet course will remain at Paperjack Elementary for at least one more year. That will give the coaches time to decide whether to design a course for the new school grounds or continue with the Paperjack course.

Winter sports
New Richmond has been badly in need of more gym space for several sports, particularly for basketball. The new gym answers that need. The gym is immense, with room for three full basketball courts. There are 18 basketball hoops located around the gym.
After having the smallest gym in the Middle Border Conference for years, New Richmond will now have the largest. Eckardt said the estimate for the capacity of the new gym is in the area of 2,400 spectators.
The Tiger wrestling team will now have one of the largest wrestling rooms in the area, with room for two full mats. There are also two mats in the gym. The mats will be on mechanical storage systems. When they are rolled up, they will be pulled up for storage near the ceiling.
The four new mats caused a challenging problem. Mats need to cure for a month before they can be used. After searching for that much space, Eckardt contacted the realtor working with the County Market store. The owner of the store allowed the schools to use that space so the mats could be rolled out and cured.

Spring sports
The Tiger baseball team will now be playing its games at two new fields on the school complex. The baseball fields are located at the west end of the complex near the County Market structure.
The infields on both fields are packed with thick, lush grass. The outfields were seeded and coming along nicely. Most of the sports fields were seeded two years ago, so they have had plenty of time to get established before they will face the pounding athletic teams can deliver.
Eckardt said Bob Parent, Supervisor of Buildings and Grounds, and his staff have worked meticulously to make sure that everything will be ready.
The softball team has two fields. The varsity field is located just north of the gym. The JV field is located just to the south, past the football and soccer practice fields.
Baseball and softball will also have drop-down batting cages that store in the ceiling of the gym, so they can work on their hitting any time during the year.
The track teams will practice on the new track at the high school. Eckardt said the smaller invitational meet the Tigers host will be held at the new track. Because there are no lights at the new field, the New Richmond Relays will continue to be held at the old high school track.
One of the most impressive features at the high school is the new weight room. It is huge, especially compared to the cramped space at the old high school that used to be the school stage.
All of the equipment in the weight room is new. Eckardt said that purchasing many demonstrator models, the school was able to save a considerable percentage on the cost. He said the original cost of all the equipment would have been $125,000 and the district paid less than $86,000 for all of it.
The equipment is state of the art, including squat racks, a glute machine, a leg press, a hamstring machine, two cardio treadmills, two elliptical machines and two stationary bikes. There are also hundreds of free weights and a row of weight benches for the athletes’ use.

The annual series between the Minnesota Twins and Milwaukee Brewers gets plenty of publicity as a border battle.
If that is the case, then the fans in western Wisconsin are the people most familiar with the tug between the two teams.
A large part of Wisconsin, covering the eastern half of the state in particular, is considered Brewer territory. And you’ll find very few Minnesotans who aren’t loyalists to the Twins.
The area that is caught in between, quite literally, is the western Wisconsin area, mainly the area from the border to Eau Claire.
By quantity, there are probably more Twins fans within this region. Proximity to the Twins Cities seems to be drawing a larger and larger percentage of the area population toward being Minnesota fans. That’s even more noticeable in football. Over the past decade or two the percentage of Minnesota Vikings fans has grown, where this area used to be nearly exclusive territory for Green Bay Packers fans.
Back to baseball. One of the things that has helped the Twins’ popularity in the area is the acknowledgement by Twins management that Wisconsin actually exists and the world doesn’t end at the St. Croix River.
In the past few years the Twins front office has begun marketing to the largely untapped market in western Wisconsin. There have been several youth clinics sponsored by the Twins in locations like River Falls, New Richmond and Luck, among others.
While the Green Bay Packers have made a concerted effort to market to the entire state, the Milwaukee Brewers have not. With the Brewers leaving this area untilled, it makes sense for the Twins to continue marketing to western Wisconsin. The Twins need to continue filling Target Field and with the number of western Wisconsin fans who have already attended games there, this is becoming a profitable area for the Twins.

Wow. The end of the spring high school sports season comes in a whirlwind. Here’s a brief synopsis on where the seasons stand for the area high school sports
Track and field
The WIAA State Track and Field Championships were held at UW-La Crosse on Friday and Saturday. It was two days packed with spectacular performances.
There were nearly 20 state records broken during the state meet. In more than 100 years of the state meet, no team has ever scored 100 team points in a meet. That changed this year when the Edgar girls scored 114 points. There were more than 18,000 fans who attended the state meet, the largest crowd to ever attend the state meet.
Western Wisconsin athletes stood out in a number of areas. Among the area state champions are Osceola shot putter Paige Garriga, Bloomer’s Malcolm Wankel in the Division 2 800 and Shell Lake’s Tom Helstern who set a state record in the Division 3 800. Somerset’s Alicia Potting earned four medals in the state meet, topped by a second place finish in the Division 2 triple jump.
Several athletes stood out at the state meet. One was Dezerea Bryant of Milwaukee Tech, who set state records in girls 100 and 200 meter dashes. In the 200 she ran the fastest 200 meters in state history, in 23.31 seconds. New Richmond’s Kat Keller capped an exceptional sophomore season by placing fourth in that race. Her time was 24.95 seconds.
 

Boys golf
Osceola’s Charlie Danielson won the sixth state championship in his family when he won the Division 2 state championship, played at University Ridge Golf Club in Madison on Monday and Tuesday. Danielson ended at five under par for the tournament, the only Division 2 player to finish under par.
Somerset’s boys, making their first appearance in a state tournament, took eighth place in the Division 2 team competition. Eau Claire Memorial was the top area team in Division 1, placing seventh among the 16 teams entered.

Baseball
Elk Mound from the Dunn-St. Croix Conference will be representing the area in the Division 3 state tournament. The Mounders topped Hurley 5-4 on Wednesday in the sectional tournament at Osseo-Fairchild. Elk Mound beat Neillsville 7-1 in one sectional semifinal, with Hurley beating Grantsburg 12-4 in the other.
In the Division 2 sectional at Prescott on Tuesday, Altoona used a seven-run inning to topple St. Croix Falls 10-6. The Saints beat Amery 3-2 in one sectional semifinal while Altoona edged Spooner 1-0 in the other semifinal.
River Falls reached the sectional championship game at Marshfield on Tuesday. The Wildcats lost to Merrill 8-7 in nine innings in the title game. River Falls eliminated Stevens Point 4-2 in one semifinal. Merrill eliminated Eau Claire Memorial 4-1 in the second semifinal game.
In Division 4, Chippewa Falls McDonell will be the state representative from the Bruce Sectional Tournament. The Macks beat Mellen 12-3 in the championship game. Mellen eliminated Luck 10-4 in one semifinal while McDonell beat Spring Valley 6-1 in the other.
 

This is going to be a busy weekend for high school athletes.
WIAA baseball regional tournaments are being played, led by a pair of Division 1 games in Eau Claire on Friday.
Eau Claire’s Carson Park will be the site for those games. New Richmond will face Eau Claire Memorial in the first game, at 11 a.m. That’s followed by a game between River Falls and Eau Claire North at 2 p.m. The two Eau Claire schools drew the top two seeds in this regional bracket.
The games are being played early in the day because the Eau Claire Express of the Northwoods League already has a 7 p.m. game scheduled for Carson Park.
It has been a tough week for the upper seeds in the WIAA Division 2, 3 and 4 regional brackets.
In Division 2, Ellsworth and Somerset, the top two seeds, both were eliminated. St. Croix Falls and Prescott, the three and four seeds, were scheduled to play on Thursday in their regional final game.
In Division 3, Grantsburg, a fifth seed, is headed to sectionals. Grantsburg knocked off Cameron, Clayton-Turtle Lake and Boyceville, three of the top four seeds, to reach sectionals.
Eau Claire Regis knocked off Osseo-Fairchild, another Division 3 top seed. Regis is scheduled to play at Elk Mound at 5 p.m. on Thursday to decide the regional champion.
Further to the east, Stanley-Boyd was another one seed that bit the dust. Stanley-Boyd was beaten by Cadott 9-2. Cadott is slated to play at Neillsville at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday to settle who would be champion of that regional.
In Division 4, Spring Valley is scheduled to host Elmwood at 5 p.m. on Thursday to decide the regional title. They are the top two seeds in their regional bracket.

State track meet
The WIAA State Track and Field Championships will be held this Friday and Saturday at UW-La Crosse. This is one of the gems of the high school sports year. There may not be a better showcase of the top athletic talent in the state.
Many of western Wisconsin’s schools will be well represented at the state track meet. Hudson takes a sizeable group to state. The Raider girls area led by Jamie Lindstrom, who is ranked seventh in the shot put and 13th in the discus headed into state. For the boys, Tyler Smith will run in the 100 and 200 meter dashes. The Raider 3200 meter relay team could also do some damage. They are ranked tenth heading into the state meet.
River Falls has three individuals entered at state. They are led by senior Kali Kramolis, a long-time standout in the 100 hurdles.
New Richmond had four events entered at state, with sophomore sensation Kat Keller involved in three of them. Keller is ranked in the top five in the Division 1 100 and 200 meter dashes and she anchors the Tigers’ 800 meter relay team. New Richmond’s boys 800 meter relay team will also run at state.
Somerset’s girls could make an impact in Division 2, with 10 girls competing in 11 events. The Spartans are led a trio of seniors who had amassed a ton of points (Alicia Potting, Lauren Westerdahl and Tasha Kandakova). The Spartan boys will be represented by Dylan Rivard in the 400 meters.
St. Croix Central is led by a pair of returning state athletes. Senior Isaac Lindahl will compete in the 300 hurdles and junior Brett Johnson will run in the 1600 and 3200 meter distance races.
Prescott is led by Cole Geiger in the long jump, Joe Smith in the 400 and Ty Stees in the shot put. The cards also have their 1600 meter relay team competing. Prescott’s girls reached state in four events.
Ellsworth has one athlete competing at state. Sophomore Abbey Ristow is seeded tenth in the Division 2 discus throw.
Elmwood-Plum City has the chance to be a player in the Division 3 team competition. E-PC advanced seven boys events and four girls events on to state.
Spring Valley’s girls send a pair of high jumpers and distance runner Breanna Colbenson to state. The Cards also have senior Mitch Samuel competing in the 100 meters in the boys meet.