Greendale Baseball Team Hopes For Rare Postseason Success

The Greendale Panthers baseball program has not had a heck of a lot of recent WIAA postseason success.

But the Panthers have a chance to do something Friday they’ve done just one other time this decade.

A win over the host and second-seeded New Berlin West Vikings at 5 p.m. Friday in a WIAA regional final would send Greendale to the sectional round for consecutive years.

The only other time Greendale reached the sectional in back-to-back years was in 2008-09.

Friday’s winner will advance to Monday’s sectional at Whitnall High school with semifinal games at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. and the championship at 5 p.m.

Here are some more tidbits about Friday’s regional finals:

• Of the 32 teams remaining, eight are from the Woodland Conference, the most representatives from any league. Just two, however, are from the Woodland East (Whitnall and South Milwaukee).
• The North Shore Conference has seven teams remaining and the Greater Metro and Easter Wisconsin with six each, followed by the Classic 8’s three and the Central Lakeshore’s two.
• Friday’s regional games will feature 10 teams that won or shared a conference title: Pius, New Berlin West, Wauwatosa West, Whitnall, Germantown, Cedarburg, Cedar Grove-Belgium, Plymouth, Oak Creek and Kettle Moraine.
• The highest seeded team to lose in the four sectionals so far was third-seeded Homestead to 14th-seeded Port Washington.
• Other area upsets included 10th-seeded Nicolet beating seventh-seeded Whitefish Bay, 11th-seeded Mukwonago beating sixth-seeded Waukesha West; and 10th-seeded Pewaukee over seventh-seeded Marquette.