Photo by Samantha Davis: Wabasso boys basketball head coach Scott Leopold watches from the sidelines during the Rabbits' Section 3A North championship game against Central Minnesota Christian, March 9 in Marshall.

WABASSO — The last two seasons have marked a period of tremendous growth for the Wabasso boys basketball team, with the Rabbits going 26-4, reaching the subsection championship game for the first time in over a decade and winning the Tomahawk/Valley Conference for the first time ever. The rapid turnaround comes under head coach Scott Leopold, our 2025-26 Boys Basketball Coach of the Year.

In just his second year as head coach, Leopold has led a massive shift in the perception of Wabasso boys basketball. The year before he took over, Wabasso went 5-22 and hadn’t had a winning record since it went 12-11 in 2014. Since then, the Rabbits had averaged about six wins per season with a .249 winning percentage. In his first year, the Rabbits tripled their win total to 15-12, and made another massive leap this year.

“We definitely had high expectations for ourselves. I mean, the boys were on a mission to make something happen,” Leopold said. “We expected to play well, but I don’t think we quite expected to get to 26 wins.”

Leopold wanted to thank the community for their support throughout the season, saying that the Rabbits’ fan section in its final two games of the season were as loud as any gym he’s ever been in. He also wanted to thank his family, assistant coaches Sam Fenger and Dylan Woodford, and their families as well for supporting them through their basketball workload.

The team’s returning leadership was a big part of Wabasso’s ability to take the next step this year, Leopold said. The Rabbits had a strong group of sophomores and juniors last season, and that core taking another year to develop helped them mature.

“I had five seniors this year, compared to only having three the year before. I mean, it was really nice, they led the team, took care of business in practice, and pushed the envelope every day with trying to make everybody better,” Leopold said. “We just kept working hard and getting that advantage there.”

From the first tip of the season, the Rabbits looked like one of the best teams in Class A. Wabasso opened the season with a 95-86 win over Renville County West, and rattled off 14 consecutive wins to stay undefeated until Jan. 20.

The streak ended with a 74-72 heartbreaker on the road against Springfield, but the Rabbits were unfazed by one result. The only games Wabasso lost for the rest of the regular season came against reigning state champion No. 9 Dawson-Boyd and No. 2 Central Minnesota Christian, rounding out the regular season with a 23-3 record.

“I don’t think the boys were too happy about that [loss to Springfield], but they were so excited just to come out and play well and we just kind of kept it rolling,” Leopold said. “Let’s keep it rolling one game at a time. We just didn’t look too far ahead. We didn’t look behind us. We’d just kind of say, ‘This week we have two games. First game, let’s get that done, and then let’s go to the next game.’ We just had that whole attitude the whole season like forget what happened, let’s move on to the next one.”

Still, the Rabbits weren’t satisfied with just a strong regular season. After winning the Tomahawk Division, Wabasso took on Nicollet in the Tomahawk/Valley championship game. While the Raiders scored as many points as any team had against the Rabbits to date, the game wasn’t close; Wabasso ran away with a 113-86 win to claim the championship for the first time in their 54 years with the conference.

“We had a goal at the beginning of the year to try to go after that conference and take ownership of that. We let a game slip that we probably shouldn’t have, but we were still able to hang on, get the tie for the conference to get a share of the championship, and then go and win the championship game trophy,” Leopold said. “We’ve never won it, so that was really cool and the boys were ecstatic. I mean, we had so much celebration in the community for that.”

Part of the success of this year’s Wabasso squad comes down to the versatility of its roster. Caden Frericks put together an all-time great season on the glass, finishing sixth in Minnesota single-season history in rebounds with 498. Brayden Guetter was one of the area’s top scorers and rim protectors and Drew Kemp was a stellar distributor and 3-point shooter. All three of those players averaged at least 16 points per game this season.

“They all bought into the fact of ‘Hey, we have to be a team. No one guy can do it on his own. We needed to have everybody play their role, do their part, own it, and then just excel at that one thing,” Leopold said. “If it was a guy who had to play defense tonight instead of scoring 15 points, that’s what they bought into. They just said, ‘Okay, we’re going to do our job, we’re going to work in our role and we’re going to play as a team.”

Even after claiming their first Tomahawk/Valley Conference title, the Rabbits weren’t done going to work yet. The Rabbits stomped out their first two opponents of the Section 3A tournament, rolling to an 81-60 win over No. 6 Minneota in the subsection quarterfinals and an 89-70 win over No. 2 Dawson-Boyd in the subsection semifinals.

The Rabbits and Blackjacks had met during the regular season, with the reigning state champion Blackjacks downing Wabasso 82-72. Still, the Rabbits were unfazed by the first game when they got ready for the rematch.

“To refocus [after winning the conference championship] and go get Dawson-Boyd, which is a huge game for us — I mean, they were ranked in state a lot of the year and played us tough at home here — to then go up to Monte [Montevideo] and take care of that game, that was a lot, and it meant a lot for the community and us as a team,” Leopold said.

The Rabbits’ season came to an end in the subsection championship game against Central Minnesota Christian, falling 90-64 to a Bluejays team that was ranked No. 2 in Class A. Still, the Wabasso boys held their heads high as they walked out of the gym.

“You never want the season to end, but going into the locker room after the CMC game, I just thanked the seniors and told the rest of the kids, ‘Hey, now you know how it feels to be here. Then you’ve got to be hungry and you’ve got to want to get back,'” Leopold said. “I think every one of them, eye contact, shaking their heads yes, I think the motivation is already there. They loved that feeling, they want to get back and obviously take care of business this time and try to move forward and get to that state level or the section title game.”

Leopold added that losing seniors like Avery Eis, Guetter, Tavyn Larson, Jayden Remiger and Josh Timm hurts, but that the younger kids are planning to do summer work at the AAU level and the next crop of kids is just as motivated to get back to that same level.

As much as the group accomplished over the course of the season, the thing that Leopold took the most pride in over the season was the kids’ mindset. Through trials and tribulations, the kids never gave up and kept working to get better each day at practices and games.

“The kids just really played amazing and got through every step of that process,” Leopold said. “They’re coming off of years where basketball hasn’t really been a priority in Wabasso, and I think they kind of just took pride in that. I’m going to stamp Wabasso, this name, in the area and say, ‘Hey, we’re back and we’re going to try to do something special.'”