One of the first teams to open up tournament play this spring will be the Women’s Softball team. Just this past week, the softball team closed their regular game portion of their season. With the sweep of UW-Superior on Monday the 27th, Stout earned a fifth seed in the tournament. Stout’s first game will be against number two seed, UW-Whitewater at 12 pm in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Stout finished their regular season 15-23 and 7-9 in conference play. The game against UW-Whitewater will definitely be a battle for the women as last time they met in conference play, Stout lost both games. Stout will have to work really hard to beat out this talented Whitewater team to defend their conference title from last year. First round of the tournament will begin Friday, May 1st and take place through Sunday the 3rd.
Also on this coming Friday, May 1st, the track and field teams will be competing in their own conference meets. The WIAC conference meet will be held in Lacrosse, WI for both Friday and Saturday. Judging from previous meets this outdoor season and last year’s outdoor conference meet, coming in to the meet, certain individuals stand out more than others. Of these include Laurisa Titterud, junior from Lino Lakes, MN. Titterud has had an especially remarkable season breaking a lot of school records. In the WIAC indoor conference championships, Titterud won the meet in the 400 meter dash. Although very different competing outside, Titterud’s expected performance in her individual events at the WIAC outdoor championship is very similar. Another individual to look out for is Laura Mesenburg, senior from Byron, MN. Just last week, Mesenburg set a new personal record of 12’ 1.5” and is one of the top pole-vaulters in the conference. Meagan Ward, senior from Eau Claire, WI, will be looking to capture the conference title this year after coming just second behind Stout teammate Jessika Smith. As a team, the women’s track and field has been doing very well and are expected to place high in this year’s conference meet.
For the men’s track and field team, Patrick Jenkins, senior of Cambridge, WI, is expected to be found leading the scoring for the team. Jenkins is back to defend his two conference titles from last year’s outdoor conference meet in the 5,000 meter and 10,000 meter runs, especially since Jenkins just set a personal record in the 10,000 meter this past week at the Gina Relays meet in Hillsdale College. Hoping to improve from their seventh place finish in the indoor track and field, the men’s track and field team is looking for some individuals to step up and compete coming this weekend. One of those individuals being Christian Lucchessi, freshman from Milwaukee, WI of which will be competing in his first outdoor conference championship this weekend. Last year’s outdoor meet. Last year, the men placed sixth at the outdoor WIAC conference championship meet, and there’s plenty of room for improvement this year.
The last sport to have their conference championship is men’s baseball. The baseball team is now 16-17 overall and 4-16 in the conference. Stout now seeded sixth in the conference will close out conference play with their three conference games this week. On Wednesday, April 29th, Stout will travel to Superior, WI to take on opponents UW-Superior. On Saturday and Sunday of this weekend, the 2nd and 3rd, the men’s baseball team will host opponent UW-Whitewater. Game times are 12 pm on Saturday and Sunday. Seeding for the conference championship tournament will then be decided thereafter.
Photo Credit Layne Pitt