The Wright County East Preview
The Wright County East Conference continues to produce high level basketball teams with some of the better players in the extended metro. How much of that has changed? Not much. Conference Commentary Top Ten Level: Waconia, Delano The Cats…
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Continue ReadingThe Wright County East Conference continues to produce high level basketball teams with some of the better players in the extended metro. How much of that has changed? Not much.
Conference Commentary
Top Ten Level: Waconia, Delano
The Cats and Tigers have been hoops rivals for as long as I have been covering high school basketball and their games this year will be must-see level. PJ Hayes and Trey Longstreet lead the teams as big wings, different players but high level contributors with size as guards/wings. Both teams have some size, some young players, good coaches, and fight that fans can enjoy. Last year the games were really close and honestly either team can win it, there shouldn’t be much separation. Because I have to rank 1-10 statewide I put Waconia one ahead because they won the most recent game. That’s it, that’s the separation. Delano likely has the edge of returning talent from last year’s teams.
Compete with Most: Holy Family
Holy Family lost six of their top eight guys to graduation, but we feel like there may be a lot of similarities to what they do and how they play. With so many new faces the record may be similar but Nick Hendler could have a massive season.
Rebuilding: Hutchinson, New Prague, Orono
I am fully aware that Hutchinson is getting better. They have some good young players should help boost them to double figure wins this year. That said they went 0-10 in league games a year ago and lost 18 of their last 20 so before I boost them I need to see more from them to move them up. But I don’t think Hutch will finish in the bottom of the league this year. For the Trojans of New Prague this is very much a new look team so I put them here. They won’t be bad as some thing a “rebuild” says but with six of the top eight gone there are changes. Orono will have a lot of new bodies on the floor with a steady young guard, some bigs, and veteran wings.
Predicted Order of Finish
- Waconia
- Delano
- New Prague
- Orono
- Holy Family
- Hutchinson
Preseason All Wright County East Conference
First Team Pre-Season All Conference
Trey Longstreet of Delano (Jr).
PJ Hayes of Waconia (Sr).
Keagan Smith of Delano (Sr).
Connor Schwob of Waconia (Sr).
Nick Hendler of Holy Family (Sr).
Second Team Pre-Season All Conference
Russell Corrigan of Hutchinson (Sr)
Max Otto of Delano (Sr).
Walker Johnson of New Prague (Sr).
Terron O’Neill of Delano (Sr).
Sam Rensch of Hutchinson (Soph)
Third Team Pre-Season All Conference
Jacob Farrell of Orono (Soph)
Zach Kuseske of Hutchinson (Jr)
Connor Chappell of Orono (Sr)
Jack Patterson of Orono (Sr)
Seth Thompson of Holy Family (Sr).
Fourth Team Pre-Season All Conference
Mitchell Callahan of New Prague (Sr)
Carter Kienholz of Waconia (Sr)
Spencer Swanson of Waconia (Jr)
Andrew Mandel of Orono (Jr)
Sam McNulty of Holy Family (Sr)
Billy Marquardt of Hutchinson (Jr)