Dairyland League ready to roll this weekend; WBA changes playoffs

Another season of baseball in the Dairyland League gets underway this weekend with five games scheduled around the area for Saturday and Sunday.

Twelve teams are committed to play in the league this summer. League play will consist of a single round-robin format from this opening throughout the final weekend of July.

Saturday’s schedule includes the Wausau River Hawks visiting the Medford Moondogs at 7:30 p.m. and the Rib Lake Osprey playing at the Tomahawk Titans at 6 p.m.

The Whittlesey Reds will host the Westboro Trojans at 2:30 p.m. to highlight Sunday’s local action. The Pittsville River Bandits will face the Interwood Woodticks at 1:30 p.m. in Rib Lake and the Merrill Rangers are at the Marshfield Chaparrals.

The Everest Merchants and Minocqua Wood Ducks are off this weekend. Spirit and Abbotsford do not have teams in the league this year.

The Dairyland League is the host league for this year’s Wisconsin Baseball Association Finals weekend Aug. 20-22 with Marshfield serving as the primary site and Merrill also hosting games on Friday and Saturday.

As detailed on the WBA’s Facebook page, the WBA’s board of directors made several changes to this year’s post-season tournament at its annual meeting on April 10.

The playoff field has been expanded from 32 to 36 teams, however, host teams in the first tournament weekend will not get automatic playoff berths. They will have to qualify through their normal league processes.

For 2021, the first post-season weekend (Aug. 13-15) will be considered the district playoffs, which will be held at six sites with six teams each. Those teams will be placed into two three-team pools, guaranteeing each playoff qualifier will participate in two playoff games. The 12 pool champions advance to the finals weekend, which will be played at two different Dairyland sites. Those teams will again be broken down into two threeteam pools with pool champions playing in the semifinals and championship game on Sunday, Aug. 22.

The 2021 changes will be reviewed at the WBA’s fall meeting in September.

Five district playoff hosts have been confirmed. They include Carson Park in Eau Claire (Eau Claire Cavaliers), Haugen, Hayward, River Falls and Sparta.