The Wright County West Preview

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Watertown-Mayer won the league a season ago with a senior dominated line-up. Who will step up in their place this year? Let's have a look!</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Conference Commentary</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Top Ten in State Potential</strong>: Annandale, Glencoe-Silver Lake</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>I hope you got your licks in last year because Annandale is about to be very good once again. They won 15 games in their gap season and now they have everything back save a senior who was injured for a good part of last year. The Cards are a favorite not just for the league but I overlooked them a tad for section favorite as well. Mora, Albany and Sauk Centre surely are above them for section favorite right now but I should have had them in the top four, top five at least. Watch out for the Cards. Glencoe-Silver Lake struggled last year but odds are they will be a very good team. They have three of their top four players returning and one of those players, [player_tooltip player_id='1284132' first='Eli' last='Ehrke'], is one of the best players in the state. It makes sense that GSL should be very good. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Compete with Most</strong>: Rockford, New London-Spicer, Dassel-Cokato, HLWW, Litchfield</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Rockford lost their top four players from a season ago and they were once again bitten by the injury bug. They do have all of their role players back this year though and they are always a solid program so they will be in the mix somewhat. Dassel-Cokato has five of their top six back and they should be able to surpass 18 wins and get to the 20 win area. Maybe even surprise everybody</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>New London-Spicer lost seven of their top nine, but the returning are an all league player in [player_tooltip player_id='2372690' first='Grant' last='Paffrath'] and Mason Delzer who was a double figure scorer. With two of their top three back and an undefeated JV looking to fill the spots, NLS should be in a good spot. Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted was very up and down each week going from a Rockford win to getting crushed by Rockford, and so on and so forth. They should be better as they return a guy from injury plus all but one guy is back from their rotation. Litchfield returns four of their top five from a team that did struggle last year (especially to score the ball). The Dragons can win, but I think only so much as their seems to be a talent ceiling, but they can compete, win a decent amount of games and play tough. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Rebuilding:</strong> Watertown-Mayer</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Watertown-Mayer won 19 games but they would at times use ten guys and nine of them have graduated. Even if they scale down to seven this year for the rotation their line-up will have six new faces. So this is a rebuild when it comes to the line-up.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>23-24 Wright County West Conference Predictions</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list {"ordered":true} --> <ol><!-- wp:list-item --> <li>Annandale</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>Glencoe-Silver Lake</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>Dassel-Cokato</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>New London-Spicer</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>Rockford</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>Watertown-Mayer</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --> <!-- wp:list-item --> <li>Litchfield</li> <!-- /wp:list-item --></ol> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Preseason All Wright County West Conference</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><em>First Team</em></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='1284132' first='Eli' last='Ehrke'] of Glencoe-Silver Lake (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='1293967' first='Caleb' last='Purcell'] of Annandale (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='2056766' first='Nick' last='Walter'] of Annandale (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='2372690' first='Grant' last='Paffrath'] of New London-Spicer (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='2050399' first='Gabe' last='Aamot'] of Dassel-Cokato (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><em>Second Team</em></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Joshua Fiecke of Glencoe-Silver Lake (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='2103397' first='Cody' last='Stapel'] of HLWW (jr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Ty Kulavik of Rockford (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Mason Delzer of New London-Spicer (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Jack McCann of Litchfield (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><em>Third Team</em></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='2445568' first='Gavin' last='Wang'] of Annandale (jr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='2375097' first='Michael' last='Foley'] of Watertown-Mayer (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='1582114' first='Caleb' last='Smock'] of Dassel-Cokato (jr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Brandon Valdez of Annandale (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='2175431' first='Alex' last='Zimmerman'] of HLWW (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><em>Fourth Team</em></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Kasen Warner of Dassel-Cokato (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Caleb Thinesen of Dassel-Cokato (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='1560769' first='Ethan' last='Sonju'] of Glencoe-Silver Lake (soph)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='1617780' first='Mason' last='Mochinski'] of HLWW (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='2445445' first='Braden' last='Blanchard'] of Rockford (jr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><em>Fifth Team</em></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Tucker Liestman of Litchfield (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='2118467' first='Ben' last='Walter'] of Annandale (soph)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Graham Zuehlke of Annandale (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Nikolas Keith of Dassel-Cokato (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Blake Aller of Litchrield (sr)</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->