Ben Wales, Three Lakes
Name: Ben Wales
School: Three Lakes
Grade: Senior
Soccer Honors: Four-time varsity letter winner for his father and coach, Jack Wales, and Richard Katula … Served as team captain as a junior and senior … Earned unanimous first-team all-league honors in the Northern Lights Conference as a junior and senior … Scored eight goals and had five assists as a senior.
Football Honors: Two-year varsity letter winner for coach Brian Fritz … Served as a team captain as a senior … Earned second-team all-league honors in the Northern Lakes Conference as a junior as a wide receiver … Picked up first-team all-league laurels as a punter, second-team honors as a kicker and honorable mention all-league recognition as a wide receiver as a senior.
Basketball Honors: Three-year varsity letter winner for coach Brad Volkman ... A 5-foot-10 point guard who averaged 12.5 points, 3.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game while helping Three Lakes to a 17-5 record and the Northern Lakes Conference title as a senior … Team captain as a senior … Selected honorable mention all-conference as a junior when he averaged 10.8 ppg, 4.2 rpg and 4.2 apg for a Three Lakes squad that finished 19-6 … Scored a career-high 19 points in victories over Goodman/Pembine and Crandon as a senior.
Baseball Honors: Four-year varsity letter winner for coach Jeff Liebscher … Earned honorable mention all-league honors as a freshman and sophomore and second-team laurels as a junior as a shortstop, outfielder and pitcher… Team captain as a junior and senior … Tossed a no-hitter and hit for the cycle in a 45-0 victory over Phelps as a sophomore … Batted .423 with two home runs and 15 RBIs as a junior.
Favorite Sport: “I gotta say basketball because we are typically one of the better teams in the conference. It’s fun being the team to beat. Hitting big shots is pretty exciting. The fans bring a good atmosphere in basketball.”
Best Part of High School Sports: “I love the competitive atmosphere and making friends from other schools. It’s fun to go against our rivals from other schools.”
Best Advice from a High School Coach: “When the going gets tough, you have to keep fighting through it and keep going.”
Most Memorable Moment in High School Sports: “To this point, my sophomore year beating Gillett in our regional championship in basketball. As a freshman, we won the regional championship, but I didn’t start. As a sophomore, I did start so that was pretty awesome.”
Best Part of Playing Four Sports: “I love being involved in the games. It’s just a lot of fun being out on the field. It’s busy, but I like being able to take on that challenge.”
Toughest Part of Playing Three Sports: “In the fall season, when I play football and soccer, I sometimes have three games a week or sometimes even four games a week. It’s a lot of time on the field, but it’s a lot of fun.”
Favorite Opponents: “It has to be Crandon. It’s our rivalry game. It’s only a half-hour apart so there are a lot of fans at the games. We’ve been rivals for a long, long time. It’s the big game.”
Favorite College Team: Wisconsin Badgers.
Favorite Professional Teams: Green Bay Packers, Chicago Cubs, Chicago Bulls.
Cumulative GPA: 4.0.
Toughest Individual You’ve Competed Against: “I have a friend from Crandon, Willie Sekel. We always go back and forth with each other so I’d say he’s the toughest guy I’ve competed against.”
College Plans: “There is a chance I might go to UW-Marathon County to play basketball. Otherwise, I’ll go to UW-Eau Claire, but I don’t know if I’ll play a sport. I plan to study kinesiology.”
Activities Outside of Sports: National Honor Society, Student Council President, Future Business Leaders of America, volunteer as coach and official for youth sports in Three Lakes.
I Find it Relaxing to: “I do a lot of fishing and hunting.”
Favorite TV show: “Pawn Stars.”
Favorite Movie: “The Dark Night.”
Favorite Musical Artists: “Country music … Luke Bryan, Brad Paisley and Eric Church.”
Favorite Subject: Science.
Favorite Restaurant: Buffalo Wild Wings in Wausau.
Favorite Websites: www.facebook.com.
Other Family Members: Father, Jack; mother, Lisa; older brother, Jake; younger brother, Jordan.
If you would like to nominate a senior, three-sport athlete for Triple Play Triple Threat, contact Mark Miller at mark (at) wissports.net
Tag(s): Triple Threat AOTW News Archive
