The Minnewaska Area baseball team, coached by Joe Alexander, Chris Lence, Jesse Johnson and Andy Goracke, is hoping to repeat as conference champions after sharing the WCC title with Montevideo last spring.

The Lakers lost only PJ Johnson to graduation.  Although he was the conference MVP, the Lakers have enough returning players to compensate for the loss of their top pitcher and one of their top hitters, who batted .350 last spring with an on-base percentage of .444.

Minnewaska Area went 15-5 overall last year, including a 13-1 mark in the WCC.  The only loss in the conference was an 8-4 setback to Montevideo during a doubleheader split at Monte midway through the season.

The Lakers swept a doubleheader from Morris Area during the final regular-season games, 5-1 and 4-2, getting a doubleplay to end the second game, but the Tigers got the last laugh, winning 2-0 in the Section 3AA opener at Minnewaska Area High School four days later.  

Fairmont went on to earn the Section 3AA title with a 3-2 win over Luverne in the championship before going on to place third at state one year after winning the Class AA title.

Minnewaska is set to get the season underway with a home doubleheader against Melrose, set for Tuesday, April 2.  Of course, that’s all going to depend on how long it takes to get rid of the large snowfall the area received this weekend.

The Lakers were also set to host Redwood Valley for a single game Thursday, April 4 and the KMS Saints, Friday, April 5, but more than likely, the first week of the schedule will have to be rescheduled.

Minnewaska Area started out 4-3 last year, but came back to finish 15-5 overall after winning 11 of its last 13 games. 

Morris Area-CA and Melrose Area tied for third in the WCC last season with 8-6 records, while Sauk Centre was 7-7, BOLD was 5-9 and West Central Area and Benson were tied for seventh with 1-13 records.

Looking back at last year

After dropping a game to Osakis early in the season to fall to 4-3 overall, the Lakers won 11 of their final 13 games to close out the season with a 15-5 overall record.

The only losses over the last 13 games were a 14-1 loss to Paynesville and a 2-0 loss to Morris Area to open up the playoffs.

The Lakers scored 131 runs last season for a 6.5 runs per game average and Minnewaska Area gave up 65 runs, or about 3.25 runs per game.  The Lakers batted .289 as a team this year, including a .405 on-base percentage.

Noah Jensen led the Lakers with a .414 batting average last year, followed by Joe Alexander (.356), PJ Johnson (.350), Austin Ballhagen (.317) and Jack Majerus (.300).  Jensen also had a team-best .534 on-base percentage, followed by Ballhagen (.509), PJ Johnson (.444), Levi Johnson (.431) and Majerus (.422).

•  Earning All-Conference last season for the Lakers were Noah Jensen, Dylan Alexander, PJ Johnson, Austin Ballhagen and Jack Majerus, while Alex Panitzke was selected to the honorable mention team.

In addition, PJ Johnson was named the MVP of the West Central Conference last spring and also earned All-Section 3AA honors.

In team awards for the Lakers last spring, PJ Johnson earned the MVP award, Noah Jensen was named the Offensive MVP, Dylan Alexander earned the Defensive MVP award and Austin Ballhagen was named the Most Improved.

Earning Academic All-WCC honors for the Lakers last year were Ryland Martin, Thomas Poegel, Levi Johnson, Alex Panitzke, Caden Larson, Marc Gruber and Jack Majerus.

For the JV team, Ben Johnson was named Defensive MVP and Riley Dell was the MVP, while for the C-squad team, Ben Johnson was named the Defensive MVP and Marc Gruber earned MVP.

Other baseball notes

•  For some history, Minnewaska Area first played baseball in the WCC in 1992 and has now won or tied for the championship 10 times.  The Lakers and Melrose were tied with nine league titles each before Minnewaska Area earned the co-title last spring with Montevideo.

Overall, Minnewaska Area has won WCC baseball titles in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2007, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019 and 2023.