The Northwest Preview

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The Northwest had a very clear top, middle, and low last year with Thief River Falls in control of the league. Anything different this winter? We jump in today!</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Conference Commentary</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Top Ten in State Potential</strong>:  Thief River Falls</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Thief River Falls might be in the driver's seat in this league so strongly that they are cruising on the highway with others fighting to get past the on-ramp. Of course the coach's won't want to hear that but TRF was the best team in the league last year and they bring back more talent and experience than the rest of the league. Including [player_tooltip player_id='962280' first='Jack' last='Manning'], the best player. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Compete with Most</strong>: Crookston, East Grand Forks</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The Pirates lost multiple starters including a couple league honored seniors but they bring a lot of their rotation back so we expect them to be better than five wins this year. EGF was in the middle last year and I think for another year they will be about in the middle. They have a few good young players and a couple good veterans, enough to be solid but it doesn't appear like they will be top contenders. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Rebuilding:</strong> Roseau, Warroad</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This is like saying something from 30,000 feet as we have little knowledge here, but it appears like Roseau has only one key piece back from a 5-win team and that one piece is a junior. That would trigger a potential rebuild year IF they indeed are as inexperienced as we might think. Warroad will not be at the bottom, we think they have built up too good of a program lately for that, but they lost SO much from last season that they will be starting over with a lot of fresh faces. So a rebuild, yes, but it doesn't mean they are starting from a low end area of losing games</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>22-23 Conference Predictions</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list {"ordered":true} --> <ol><li>Thief River Falls</li><li>East Grand Forks</li><li>Warroad </li><li>Crookston</li><li>Roseau</li></ol> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Preseason All Northwest Conference</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><em>First Team</em></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='962280' first='Jack' last='Manning'] of Thief River Falls (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Caleb Rosendal of Thief River Falls (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Jack Rosendal of Thief River Falls (jr) </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Clyde Anderson of East Grand Forks (jr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Liam Grover of Warroad (soph)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><em>Second Team</em></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Gunnar Lund of Roseau (jr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Hunter Nicholas of Crookston (soph)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='2420092' first='Austin' last='Rusling'] of East Grand Forks (soph)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Gage Thompson of Warroad (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Jake Friedrich of Thief River Falls (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->